


Resistance

by OneTrueStudent



Series: Lanterns [2]
Category: Chronicles of Amber - Roger Zelazny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-09
Updated: 2015-06-11
Packaged: 2018-03-06 21:27:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 28
Words: 61,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3149102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneTrueStudent/pseuds/OneTrueStudent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Patternfall War and ignoring the Second Chronicles of Amber</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

1

Preparations for walking the pattern lasted two days. They were predominantly physical. I thought of Graupa, now dead, and did work he'd prescribed many years ago. Squat, four asymmetric punches, squat, four different punches, repeat interminably. I set small circles of stones and stepped between them, then leaped from square to square, kicking. Jumping techniques were so absurdly useless, I couldn't believe I'd once taken a horseman off his mount with one. This wasn't a matter of real practice. That took months to start reaping results. This was familiarity with drills I'd done endlessly in the past, reminding myself of how my legs worked. Half the battle is muscle memory, getting your reflexes to do what you want without having to take the time to tell them. I moved in regimented patterns, as the pattern itself would regiment my movements. 

Had Root not developed a persistent cough, I would have spent months. Several days ago in a misguided reach for power he'd taken some of my meds, powerful immunosuppressants from a world beyond this one. He'd believed a web of conjecture and lies that they were a concoction of strength. They were not. I didn't know what they'd do to him in this world, but he excused himself at lunch to cough up a lung. At night I heard him sneak outside to wheeze. Captain Derwent and his allies, the omote, didn't know how to help him. I had no lore about immune systems. 

Of course I thought about walking the pattern immediately, but if I got dead, neither of us would be in better shape. A balance between preparation and haste of two days struck me as a middle ground, and perversely, I tried not to think about him at all during that time. I ate and drank with relish, and stocked sleep. 

Ex-Queen Lolimar, deposed ruler of Vo-Done, didn't know her one-time lover was probably dying. They'd spent a night together after the fall of Isenmist, and Root wanted to develop that. Lolimar was less intense. Since meeting Derwent, lord of northern marches, she'd grown interested in the world traveling captain. He'd been recruited across worlds, invaded and conquered lands, and now ruled an army of bees. We were residing in his mansion.

On one hand I felt Lolimar was behaving vilely, as she was putting Root in the lurch in what might be his final days. On the other hand, she didn't know these were his final moments. Root and I had talked about it, and we didn't know if explaining matters to her would be wise. Other than being a powerful guilt attack, pragmatically being sick unto death isn't sexy. Root didn't share my near certainty of the terminal condition of his cough, and he implored me to stay silent on the matter. 

The final member of the Vo-Done remnants was Yve, a dog handler, and her smelly, ugly, dumb little mutt, Persimmon. He was an energetic little guy, poorly house-broken, and possessed of amazing odors. The shadow we were in was roughly medieval, and there was no flea powder. Persimmon had them in spades, and Yve did as well. I liked Yve, but the girl had fleas. I didn't necessarily want to get over my reservations about that.

On the other side of the bargaining table was Captain Derwent, he of Lolimar's affections, creator of the pattern I was preparing to assay, previous conqueror of my world, and too many additional complexities to address. He and I were lying to each other like dogs. If that man told me the sun was going to rise tomorrow I'd invest in candles. His pattern was a trap. I knew it and was intending to walk it anyway. It was part of the deals we had made. My hope was that his trap was based on the idea I was a scion of Amber, which I wasn't, and that whatever he'd come up with wouldn't kill me for it. 

Peripherally related to our group was Gun the Geiger, one of the omote, and current number one contestant on my list of people I never wanted to fight. He was an ox-headed giant three meters tall, built otherwise similarly to a human. Similar was as close as I'd give him. His bones, muscles, and joints were all assembled different than a man, even ignoring the ox-head, with the result of his proportions being entirely off. He was thicker and more powerful than human beings, more like a caricature or a childish dream. I wasn't sure what part he had to play in this affair. 

On the day agreed Derwent met me in my quarters during my pre fight stretch. I'd lost a lot of flexibility over the years and couldn't touch my toes any more. My splits were terrible. But I knelt and stepped through, pushing my hip to the door until the burn in the quad kissed the difference between unpleasant and pray for the sweet release of death. I was right in that divide when the captain found me.

"Is everything on schedule?" he asked, standing in the doorway. It was his mansion, but he was a respectful person, always knocking.

"I'm giving it an hour from breakfast." I switched legs. "Then we'll go down. This is your last chance, Derwent. Is there anything I should know?"

"You mean am I holding information back?"

"Yes."

"If there was I'd have told you by now."

"That or you don't intend to tell me at all. Just be aware I've survived an awful lot, captain. If your plan doesn't involve me surviving this and I do, we will have words."

"Time hasn't blunted your hostility, Finndo," he chided me. My name is Roland, and that's something I was lying to him about. 

"Actually it has. I've calmed down a lot." I didn't know if I was lying about that or not. I liked to think I wasn't.

"I'll see to preparations then. Since we don't know if this will have any effect on the world at large, I've warned the omote and cautioned them against remaining inside. I suppose the worst case scenario is complete cataclysm, but there's no preparation for that. We'll limit our concerns to earthquakes."

I eased back off my legs and sat on my shins. In days of old, my butt touched my heels. Now I jiggled a bit above them. "That's good. Please give the omote my regards no matter what. Tell them I was deeply unimpressed by their actions and expected better."

He smiled faintly, recognizing the manner one complimented the ox-headed ones. "I sure to mention their reputations are high enough even their current actions barely meet the standards of their forefathers."

"Thank you. I'll meet you by the hives when I'm ready. It should be about an hour."

"Excellent. Good day."

He went out, and I rose to settle into a straight-leg split. My rear was nowhere near the ground.

Yve came in. "So, are you ready?"

"As ready as I'm going to be," I admitted. "I'm just warming up now."

"Do all angels stretch out before battle?" she asked me, smiling faintly.

"I'm not sure. Do all knights? I'm more the latter than the former."

"I haven't met all knights," she replied, and silence stretched between us. I walked one of my feet out with my fingers.

"Why are you so worried about Root's cough?" she asked.

"It sounds bad," I replied.

"That doesn't sound like you," she retorted.

"Maybe I'm nicer than you think."

"That's not what I mean. Every time he coughs you stare at him, and I think you're scared. You admitted the pattern might kill you, but you don't look scared for that. You do look scared about Root."

"I feel sorry for the guy. He got wrapped up in my stupid cult, which if I'd known about I would have stomped on hard. Then when he found out the truth he had a crisis of faith, and that had to hurt. Even worse, when my cult deposed Lolimar, he got kicked out, and then when he tried to get something going with Lolimar, she met Derwent and I'm worried she'll throw him over. I guess he never had anything going anyway, but you know how two people can see something like that and think two different things. The man just has no luck at all, and he's sick now. I can't be worried about him?"

I dragged myself upright, and felt my weight roll against my knees. Thank God the floor was rough.

"But I don't think you're worried. You're scared," she replied.

"However you want to put it. Any change on the Lolimar-Root situation?"

Yve stopped, and she looked conflicted. Her curiosity had to be shoving her towards pushing me, but she really wanted to gossip. She couldn't talk to the other two about themselves, and Derwent didn't speak the language. Gun did, but the Geiger wasn't human enough mentally to relish the complexities of mortal relationships. I'm not entirely sure how the omote procreated. I didn't intend to look into it.

Her curiosity lost. "Lolimar went walking with Derwent through the wildflowers after breakfast. They just returned."

"Ouch."

"I know. I watched from the fortress. He commanded the bees to spell her name, and they buzzed in unison. They sang for her. It was really nice," she admitted. "Root didn't watch. I don't think he knows."

"Where is he?"

"I don't know. I haven't seen him since breakfast."

"You know, we could be mistaking the Root situation. He might be sick with jealousy. I'm not sure how serious he thought he and Lolimar were, but it's possible he's much deeper than we think."

"You mean he's really in love?" she wailed. The thought of it tore her heart, and she looked as miserable as smelly Persimmon deprived of food. "And she doesn't love him back."

I walked my feet together. "I admit, I'm rooting for Root, heh, not only because I feel sorry for him, but because I think Derwent is a lying bastard. If you've got a plan to change her Majesty's mind, I'm ready to hear it." I reached for the ceiling and everything hurt.

"Oooh. We should come up with something. Maybe expose his cheating ways. Do you think he's got a wife somewhere?"

"Probably not," I admitted. "But what do you think about his chances? Derwent's, I mean."

"Well, he is ruler of the northlands," Yve admitted. "And you said he's going to lead the army that will give Lolimar back her throne."

"Yeah. That's a hard obstacle for Root to beat."

"Especially if she slept with Root in the first place because she was distraught over losing her throne."

Root's stock was looking bearish. "We've got to accentuate his positive quantities, cast him in a better light. Come up with something," I ordered.

"Me? Why do I have to come up with something?" she demanded. 

"Because all I do is hit people. Do you want me to hit Root? I can do it, but I don't think that's going to help him with Lolimar."

"No, probably not. You knights are useless. All right. I'll be resourceful. I'm super resourceful."

I winked at her and relaxed, limbering up. I felt ready. Now for a hot shower, more for comfort than true preparation, and it was into the beehive. The pattern was hidden at the bottom of one of Derwent's hives, a bee colony about the size of a shopping mall. Derwent said when he'd conquered Arryn, the world I was from, one of the things that had caused the Arryte military to surrender was seeing his bees carry our soldiers away bodily. I was going into the bowels of a hive to walk a death-trap. This was such a good plan.

"If you'll excuse me, I'm going to bathe."

She fussed at me and left. I soaked for a while in a bathtub that was really a stew pot, and thought dimly of the inherent metaphor. I didn't really even know how this was going to help Root, but it was the only card I had left to play. It was facedown on the felt before me, and the dealer and I kept raising. 

 

Yve, Lolimar, and Derwent met me at the mouth of the hive. The ladies were coming to watch. Root should have been too, and we waited for him. The geographic Geiger approached, and his steps kicked up thunder. He wished me well. 

"You should be done already," he rumbled. Indoor lightning drove the bees wild, so he would not be coming.

We waited, and Root remained absent.

"Take the dog handler with you, and find the missing human," Derwent ordered Gun. "He's sick. If he needs aid, see that he gets it."

The Geiger relayed this to Yve, and she meekly obeyed. Derwent was a ruler and Yve a servant. One this world, that was what mattered. 

Omote had created Derwent's fortress for him, and they'd carved it in the shape of a man. But the Geiger's people did not sculpt in the ways of men. They had shaped the stone into the skull and laid hard clay over it like muscle, forming sinews of plant fiber. Over the surface they had packed it with dirt skin. When it was new made, Derwent had said it was a perfect likeness. Weather and time had taken the flesh from the mountain, an intentional aspect of the making, and Derwent had colonized it with his bees. Their combs crusted the stone skull and made entryways in the eyes and mouth. The skull breathed dark clouds of workers. We entered at the mouth and went down. 

Derwent carried a lantern of black glass and bronze, casting shadows on the ground which were still and moving ones on the walls. All around us the bees thrived. Something agitated them. They buzzed and darted against Derwent to be repelled by some invisible power. He paused on two occasions to drive them away when mounds of them blocked the pathway. 

In the barren pit of the pattern itself we saw why. Root was halfway through and stopped, fallen to his hands and knees in the glowing pathway. Sweat soaked him like a swimmer, and he wheezed and hacked in great moist heaves. White ribbons Derwent had fought through bound him from head to foot.

"His death is no act of mine!" cried Derwent when we spotted him. 

"He isn't dead!"

"He will be. One cannot stop on the pattern and live."

"Like hell." I shoved past him.

"You belligerent ass!" screamed Derwent. "Are you daft? I nearly died the first time I walked it, and I created it! You think I managed it like you saw because it's easy? The first time is murder, and-"

I gave him the finger and stomped onto the pattern.

It wasn't physically difficult. The first few steps were just steps, with at most a slight feeling of viscosity. It was like walking through water, but low, ankle high, and not at all dangerous. I carefully put each foot down solidly on the path, but hustled through the initial straight and into the first tight curve back out. The path turned sharply from radial to circumferential, putting me in a series of gentle, outward trending arcs. Here progression aimed me back at where I'd started, and Root was diametrically opposed on the far side. 

As the waters rose and putting my feet forward became trickier, I slowed down and was bombarded by old memories. I remembered the thick stink of my father's cigars, and the smell of cheap flowers when we buried him. He went into the ground next to my sisters. The funeral is blurry, a series of images and snatches of song. My mother sang flat, which she never did, and my pants itched my legs. My uncle stood in the back with the shovel. In some way I'd never understood, he won that day, and he smoked the same bad cigars as my father as he watched my mother.

They got married in reasonable time, and then cancer killed him too. I dug the hole in the morning, we lowered him next to his brother in the afternoon, and during the reception I filled it in. Suit pants are terrible for working, and suspenders chaffed my shoulders. His coffin smelled like vinegar. I went home to my mother, and my grand parents offered me a smoke in the yard behind the house. It's been a hard day, they said. My granddad's skin looked like old leather. It was old leather, stretched over an old frame and twisted by forty years under the tobacco sun. Even his fingers smelled, and his cuffs clumped to the tar in his wrist hair. Have a cigar, he said. 

My mother was still beautiful. She's forever beautiful to me. The shipping store needed a pretty woman to sit and smile at the front desk. It couldn't be a girl. There were too many young men and old truckers in the back. It couldn't be a man. The tobacco barons would find someone else to talk to. They needed a pretty woman, hard hit on and easy to talk to. My mother needed a job, and I needed school clothes and books. Have a cigarillo, and introduce me to your mother. It's an easy smoke. It's a kid's smoke. It's what your father started on. Have a cigar.

I pushed through the first veil almost halfway around the great pattern. Somehow I was bleeding on my feet, and a few warrior bees strummed above me. I might have been stung. The water was down around my ankles again, and for the first time I looked at it. Ribbons tied my feet to the pattern, but they weren't white like Derwent's or Roots. Mine were pink. False pink at that. Blood drops fell from my shins, seeping into the ribbons, diluting in pathways like the roots of a great tree. I leaned over to brush a finger through the ribbons, and they twisted like fog. They felt like nothing. I rounded towards the next curve. With it the ribbons rose again, as I approached the second veil. 

"This is where he loses, right here," said Graupa, pointing to Eirech, the Bull, Taylor. "See how he puts his head down and charges? Leading with his chin. Up to now the Kid hasn't done much, but see how he capitalizes?" Nelis, the Kid, Ammache was a grappler, but he threw a cross that made my boxing heart proud. That hip drive was like a truck, and it crumpled the Bull's chin. 

Still on his feet and swinging, the Bull was asleep. The windows were open, but no one was home. Graupa and I were watching fights on old tapes, so old he should stack them with his phonographs. Graupa hopped up to point out the Bull's rush left him blind, and where the Kid got his back. The Kid wasn't that good, Graupa said, but the Bull was asleep. 

"You need to remember that Taylor fights like his namesake. He'll try to charge you. Ten years ago that would have worked, but Taylor can't take a hit any more. He should retire but won't. That's lucky for you. He's a big name, and if you notch a big name, you'll be halfway to a contract with ESP. Every ESP champ get's an automatic invitation to the Two Year. You beat Taylor, I can put you up against a contender. You beat the contender, I can put you up against the champ. Maybe a pad or two along the way, maybe crush a few cans. But everything starts with the Bull."

Graupa wasn't talking to me. He was talking to Ojum who would win that fight. Ojum would his next three and take the ESP flyweight belt on his way to the Two Year. I was one of Ojum's regular sparring partners, was watching tapes with our boxing coach, rolling coach, and cardio coach. It was two months before the fight, and almost the last minute if we wanted to make any real changes to Ojum's strategy. 

I wish I had known that ten years earlier. Fights had strategy, I mean. In grade school middle school, high school, it was just yell a lot and swing for the fences. We never had a biggest bully because families rotated through with the crops. There were always new faces, new bullies, and someone waiting in the wings to take them down. I was the baddest kid on the block for two weeks when I was ten, until a badder kid beat me like I stole something. I had, his lunch, so technically I deserved it. I ran home and lied to my mother about it.

This was when my uncle was my father, which is something I've never sorted out in my head. She took a hairbrush to my backside and beat me a lot worse than the other kid had. She was mad about the lying, not the fighting.

"Boys fight," she lamented. "You're not smart enough to do anything else. But you better not lie about it." 

I'd turned to my uncle for help. He was sitting in my father's armchair, smoking one of those cigars, and I couldn't tell them apart by smell. But my uncle just waved me off and said, "Listen to your mother." 

When he died, I stayed close to my mother. When I visited her at work and the men offered me cigars, I turned them down because I knew they wanted my mother. I wanted her. She was my mother, and I didn't want someone else in my father's chair, smoking his cigars, and taking my mother.

In retrospect I think she really was beautiful. I mean that objectively, had I been capable of such a thing at the time, in relation to other women. A lot of men talked to her, and she was always busy. They tried anyway. They talked to her at work, and they talked to me, and the type that never has anything to do with children were always so nice. I wouldn't listen to them. They offered me cigars and made friends with my father's parents. His parents started talking to her, and sometimes they yelled in the kitchen. Later I would smell granddad's cigar smoke from the back yard and hear my mother fussing out loud in her room. I never got along with my grandparents. They tried to spoil me by offering me cigars, and I thought of the men at work who smelled like my father. I thought of the yelling in the kitchen. We never got along.

I kept my mother safe from men, she kept me safe from the world, and when I was seventeen the bitch died on me. Influenza swept through town and took her out in four days. She went from fine to sick to dead while I was worried about a math test at school. I stood on a hillside and waited for the first old man to show up to her funeral and say something. I was going to beat him with my shovel. No one came, not even my grandparents. I moved to Arryn without ever taking that math test.

Breaking the second veil lead to the middle labyrinth, a series of switchbacks requiring cross stepping and pivots. Sweat rivers cascaded off my eyebrows and fingers. It tasted of metal because I was bleeding from a hundred tiny wounds. The red flood gushed off my legs, and the pattern on the ground drank it up. I carried a backpack of exhaustion, maybe armor, for it clung to my legs and waist. I was tired like I'd never been before, and the tricky steps of the middle labyrinth daunted me. They were never straight. Every movement was a twist, and I fought the rushing water and my own tiredness to put my feet down right. This I had trained for. So it was I came out and entered the longest arc, the Grand Curve that circumscribed almost the whole pattern. There were no lines to my right and a snake's nest of them to my left. As I ringed the curve the resistance built up again, and I marched towards Root and my memory.


	2. Chapter 2

2

The Grand Curve lead to Root. Defeat followed inadequacy as everything I could do paled beside the power of a son of Amber. I relived everything. I lost my first fight against Sandy, a fight where he never scored a point and left me in the dirt. There was my flight through Arryn. I wondered who had driven that pick-up truck. They were dead now, and only I remembered them. Of all the world, only I remembered. I remembered Glen Herrin Falls, the only truly glorious battle I was ever in. And then I remember the long dark of Isenmist, and I think I understood what Lolimar had meant when she'd said she'd understood her grandmother. I thought of a thousand little things I could have done to change all that, and they were all gone. There's no way back. Understanding if not acceptance heaved itself on my shoulders and bound me like the ribbons, and then I came to Root. In the deepest admission of my own failings, I had to stop.

"You ready?" I asked.

"I'm going to die," he said quietly. "And it was for nothing. I'm going to die because a mistake I already made, and there's nothing I can do to fix it any more."

What was there to do? Step over him? I bore the second-hand blood of Amber, a knighthood, and Root was common in the land of Isenmist. He wasn't worth my time. I picked him up and put him on his feet before me.

"Have a cigar," I whispered, and under the sweat I was crying. "Come on. We need to walk now."

"I don't think I can do it."

"I think you can."

"Does it matter?"

"It does to me. It does to Yve. It does to her smelly little dog."

"They got fleas."

"They do."

"Do you think it matters to the queen?"

"I hope so," I admitted.

The bindings held his feet to the ground, and he coughed for a while. Mucus sizzled in the air. 

He staggered forward because I pushed him, and then I had to stumble after. I couldn't let him go alone. Steps were harder now. They'd been bad before, but coming from the Grand Curve, each step carried the weight of mistakes I'd regretted for years. We tottered ahead, and prepared ourselves for the final veil. 

"And that's the plan," Derwent was saying to Lolimar. 

"If I refuse?" she asked.

"Nothing. You'll be free to go. I'll leave with Bleys when he comes, and you can do whatever you want in this shadow."

Maybe she said something, but the bees covered the sound. Root and I slowed to near stasis. You'd need a micrometer to know we were fighting into the last barrier, but our ears worked. We heard the Queen and Lord Aramach talking. 

"But if not-" she asked, letting him finish the statement.

"I've been promised a world. They don't care which shadow it is. This one, another, it doesn't matter. Take my hand, now, and lock the pattern trap. I will make myself King, drive the yrch from here forever, and bring the races of men and omote to union. I will give you back your throne. To the Amberites, everything you have ever wanted is a reasonable payment for a mild debt. I'll share that with you. Everything."

 

She thought for a long time. I moved one foot fractionally in that era. The continents of Arryn moved faster than my steps through the final veil. Lolimar had all the time in the world, or any world she chose, to consider.

"And they won't be harmed?" she asked.

"Of course not," Derwent promised. "They'll be fine. We're just holding them."

"Until Bleys comes."

"Until his brother comes and takes him home. They're family. His family misses him. They'll take care of him."

"You always take care of your family," she whispered.

"Always," Derwent agreed.

Root tried to turn his head to face her, and maybe he slowed down. Only geological time could tell. But the corner of his eye fixed on her, and Derwent placed his hand gently around the small of her back. She leaned into the captain. The bees descended from the ceiling, and as one queen to another, she gave them an order. Root tried to leave the pattern, but he was too slow. I pushed him ahead like a stone against a tree trunk. The workers started assembling combs around the pattern, and Derwent and Lolimar walked out of the chamber, hand in hand. 

 

Exhaustion took me in the center, and I laid still. My breathing was the work of bellows. Sweat hid my tears until I had that moment of weakness under control, and then Root and I sat up to take stock of our situation.

The pattern chamber was completely enclosed. Unbroken combs walled us in, save for small sanitary chambers. There was no way in or out. Before that, we were trapped at the apex of the pattern. That was negotiable. After we'd rested, we traversed the ceiling to the wide spaces outside, but we were still shackled within. 

I punched a hole in the wall. Wasps broke out and stung me until I decided never to do that again. They patched up the wall, and I had a hand like a blimp. We ate some honey and talked about the pattern. 

Root's experience was much like mine. It had taken him through his life, from birth on a pig farm through adolescence on a pig farm into adulthood on a pig farm with the sure, absolute knowledge it would terminate in death on a pig farm. 

"This pigs wouldn't even miss me. Pigs are stupid animals," Root muttered. 

"So what lead you to the cult?"

"Your Orthodoxy?"

"Not my orthodoxy!" I insisted. "How about The Orthodoxy?"

"If you'd rather. Freedom, freedom from the pigs. They were preaching sedition and turmoil. Naively I thought anything was better than pig farming, and so I went. I thought I had nothing to lose. I met people, started working with Morten and the others, and finally we decided to break into your tower. It's not that I didn't remember any of that, but I also wasn't prepared to relive it all over again. I've been avoiding the thought I'm going to die soon, and I really didn't want to think about how it was all my fault-"

"You're not dead yet," I interrupted him. My own grief over that matter was safely hidden in the back of my mind. "Don't obsess."

"Roland, we're in a dungeon. It's a bee dungeon, but it's a dungeon. What else exactly do you think I should do?"

"In times of trouble, I remember a word of advice my mentor gave me. Float like a leaf on a river of change, and if that doesn't work, armbar," I quoted old Graupa. "While we're here, we will train."

"You only have one goat in your pen, do you know that?"

I assured him I had no idea what he meant.

The swelling in my hand went down within a week, and by then Root had a vague idea of what to do in a fight. He hadn't died yet, and his cough had improved. We didn't discuss it, but our moods lightened. The pattern's luminescence provided light, and we ate honey from dedicated chambers. The second week was more striking and an introduction to grappling. I got serious about physical conditioning. Root observed that if Bleys, or whomever, was coming for us, he wasn't coming that fast.

"I'm not impressed, Angel Roland," said Root because he knew it irritated me. "I expected more urgency from your kidnappers."

"Hey! Did you notice Derwent knew your language when he spoke to Lolimar?" I exclaimed, realizing something.

"Yes. He's been lying to us. You were lied to. Are you surprised? I'm surprised."

But Root didn't look surprised. 

"Well, that's just rude."

During the second week I assayed the pattern again, and it was bad. I was more prepared for the emotional trickery, but the physical agony was debilitating. I rested for a week and attacked it again. Then I did it again. Mindfully, I gave myself time to recover, but when we hit the second month of darkness under the hive, I was walking it four times a week.


	3. Chapter 3

3

Time being nebulous without the sun, we were in punching o'clock. It lasted from kicking to arms-are-too-sore-to-move. The eternal, unchanging buzz of the hive filled our cocoon with white noise, which alternatively drove us mad and faded from consciousness. We had just started coordination drills, tap and move, when a great grinding tear broke open the comb wall. Light poured in from several lanterns.

Three people entered. 

The one in front was fire haired, big boned, red faced, and smiling. He beamed at us, holding aloft his swinging black lantern. It cast flesh-searing light that burned the shadows from the walls, and overwhelmed the subtle but powerful glow of the pattern on the ceiling. His fingers were plated in rings, and the hilt of his sword bore a kings ransom. Once through the doorway, he put aside his lantern and greeted us, voice booming and echoing. 

"Good morning! Don't mind the door; we'll let ourselves in."

Root and I separated to face these interlopers. 

"Bleys, I presume," I said.

"Of course!" he agreed, and smiled. "I see my fame precedes me to the darkest corners of the world. If you were looking for the darkest of shadows, I congratulate you on a job well done. You, sir, got it."

"Right," I replied, shooting a sideways glance at Root. The two of us parted and started advancing on this Bleys from either side.

"Ah, come to kiss the ring?" he asked, still gloating. He was an insufferably confident ass. Oddly I found myself taking a liking to him in a way that increased my desire to punch his face.

"We just want to make you feel at home," Root added, passing the pattern and then swinging wide to execute the pincer.

Bleys looked between the two of us and grinned. His eyes took in our positions and the quiet danger of the pattern behind. Insects seeped through the gash in the wall, flowing inside in brown-banded chitin, while outside the buzz of uncountable wings echoed behind him. The redhead observed our rather obvious advance, and the passionate enjoyment of his gaze intensified. 

"Oh now, boys, you welcome me to your mansion with fun and games. How can I refuse?"

He shrugged like we were offering him a rich feast. 

Root shot first, low and fast to take the redhead's legs. Bleys' sword flashed out and wide, and pommel stamped lunging Root on the base of the skull. The kid went down. Flicking the point to me, Bleys thrust to drive me back. I let him clear space. The Amberite never allowed his arm to lock and swung the point back around to face me, taking ground to the side. Now we were both in front of him again, and Bleys had plenty of room to maneuver. 

I took Root by the pants and put him back on his feet. He wasn't that concussed. Neither of Bleys' accomplices seemed inclined to interfere, so we rounded on the Amberite again as the most dangerous one. 

"Easy, fighter," I cautioned. "Set up the shoot first. Don't lead with your head."

"Yeah. Sorry."

"Don't be. Relax."

Grinning and moving, Bleys bounced across the floor, waiting for us. His sword cut flourishes in the air, patterns and traceries that spelled out his name and accolades. I began to smile. 

Root hung back as I stepped into range. Bleys took it immediately, slashing at my shoulder. I closed off his lunge and parried the sword near the hilt. The edge didn't start till halfway down. He twisted, beat my wrist, and leaned out of the way of my punch. A cut dove at my head. I swayed, kicked, he stamped my knee, and disengaged. Root lunged and Bleys flowed away, sword waving and eyes twinkling. 

He was fast and strong, as expected. His breathing was gentle, well timed, and showed no traces of either fear or excess excitement. Bleys wasn't fighting for his life, but he also wasn't being stupid. There was a subtle trap in his stance, an urge to assume he was overconfident. Go all in, his posture said. I'm barely paying attention. 

"This is what I never understood about shadow-dwellers," he opined, circling the sword. "You're always so quick to-"

I took the bait and blitzed. He tried to parry his point into my eye, but I closed ahead, took a cut to the ear, and swung. He blocked. Root dove to tackle him, and Bleys jumped, but in the instant in the air, he couldn't use footwork to dodge. I swung, and he got around it, but landed wrong. Too bad, that shot would have broken an Amberite's ribs. Root scrambled underfoot. Bleys attacked, I blocked, and jumping over the human beneath, we exchanged a volley.

In the flash of his first assault, Bleys' tried to take me out in sheer speed. He got a few cuts in, but nothing serious. Importantly, he got the measure of me, and I him. We were about even, and I had more fists than he had swords. I slapped his weapon arm away, and he rabbit punched me. It was a glorious kidney shot, dirty as all hell, an instant disqualification from competition. Highest marks. I faked it hurt, turned, and stomped his instep.

Bleys avoided that, letting me stomp Root. But he went for a strike, expecting me to recoil, and instead I let my foot bounce of Root to catch a thigh. Bleys gasped, Root yelled, sorry Root, and I shot, taking his body and sword arm, and driving us into the wall. We smashed through the combs, and the bees went wild. 

Crazy bastard grabbed a handful of the stinging monsters and smacked me with them. They tried to get in my eyes. Distraction successful, he tossed his sword from locked arm to free and tried to stab me. I cleared space and failed, taking iron through the leg. Stingers lanced my cheek. Root supermanned Bleys in the face.

Every bad thing I've ever said about jumping foot attacks goes double for punches. Keep your damn feet on the ground. Root's knuckles broke the wall with Bleys' head, and now the Amberite took insane-bee swarms to the skull. I ripped insects off before they got in my eyes, and saw Root doing damage to the midsection. He was working Bley's like a bag, left, right, left, right, as fast as possible. The prince ignored the human, flashed his cloak over his head and washed himself clean. I tried to close and almost got stabbed for my trouble. Bleys flicked his blade at me, and slapped Root with the bee-cloak. It broke the pig-farmer's rhythm. The Amberite feinted, I bought it, and he stamped Root again while I was back. I closed but Root sprawled and kicked my foot out. Bleys got space, free of the insects, jumped over us both, and landed inwards of me. I was on my knees at his feet.

Dumbass, overconfident, undertrained, nothing to lose Root went airborne again, this time on a Bleys that wasn't distracted, wasn't out of position, and was waiting for him. Two feet of steel ran through Root's guts and shot out his backside, almost clean. 

I lost my mind. I swung from my back and punched him in the side of the knee with berserk strength. Tendons blew like broken string. The Amberite's thighs shot wide underneath him, and suddenly Bleys' wasn't smirking. I hit him in the gut, and he tried to parry. My knuckles crunched into his. Bones broke. He tried to escape on one leg, and I kicked it out from under him. He went down as I leaped up, and then I jumped on his head.

They were supposed to be kicks, but in reality I was just stomping on his skull, screaming incoherently. It was madness, meaningless, and Bleys did the turtle. Everyone does the turtle when you're stomping on their head. If you don't, you die. I shrieked something about he couldn't kill Root after I had, and two hundred odd kilos of the floor knocked me flying. 

One of the two others, the man, had cut himself a throwing rock and used it well. The far wall arrested my slide, and also my madness. I reflexively snapped my eyes side to side, widening my view point and breaking free of tunnel vision. That gets you killed too. Root was a tiny ball on the floor, and the two others were between me and Bleys. The redheaded woman was examining him, and the orange-robed man with a long, scythe-like blade, was addressing me.

"Is he your liegeman?" he asked.

"Close enough."

"In another time I wouldn't have cared, but presently I've come to examine such thoughts in a more clinical light. Events have occurred. That doesn't mean I'll let you harm Bleys."

"Good for you." I got up. The floor hadn't hurt as much as I'd thought, and I still had my wind. I advanced on the long and deadly sword. 

The lean swordsman observed my advance with the same understanding Bleys had. He was less ostentatious about it though. "Your liegeman needs medical attention. He needs a sterile facility and treatment he won't get here. Do you want to fight, or do you want him to live?"

Right in the tender belly. I hissed and stopped. "Where do you-"

"Anywhere but here," Benedict replied. "Fight me, one of us will die. He certainly will. Surrender, come quietly, and we will treat you with respect and save your man's life."

"Where?"

"To Amber."

I hesitated. My legs vibrated in suppressed tension, and I looked back and forth between them all. I wanted to go to Root's side and see how he was. Why was he still down? He'd just been stabbed. I'd seen people fight for minutes after getting stabbed. He shouldn't even have had time to bleed much yet. God dammit, why was he down already?

"Swear it. On such oaths as you hold dear. Swear you'll save him, or I swear to you, my dying words will be a curse, and I will pour my blood into the crucible of your suffering."

"Ah, so it is. Then I swear on the blood of the Unicorn, the lineage of my father, and my love of Amber, I will do everything in my power to see your liegeman survives." 

I was beaten. Now I had nothing left to fight with. I slumped and lowered my hands. My fingers felt naked giving up my fists. "So be it. I surrender."

"Good. Come along. Fiona?"

"He could do with a visit to the doctor as well. Let's stop in Earth first. I have a trump of a facility of good tact, and it lets us keep matters quiet."

"Of course. Come, sir," Benedict gestured me to join him, and the threshing sword passed behind his cloak. The tall, lean man did not shake my hand as I approached. He dissected my advance for intuitions of attack as constantly as before. But he let me pick up my bleeding friend and carry him to the others. Fiona had a card out, and some things happened. There was a sensation of movement. Then we were in an ER, different from Arryn, but close enough it was the same. Nurses and doctors appeared, and they took my last friend away.

 

"I would very much like to introduce you to my brother Gerard," Bleys told me later in a hospital room.

"Because you think I'd like the guy, or because you think he could beat me up?" I demanded.

Bleys shrugged expansively and winked. For someone with varying medical terms for concussions in spades, he was indefatigably pleasant. 

"Yes," Benedict observed without amusement. "Now, tell us of yourself," he ordered me. 

This wasn't a hospital for normal people. This was a hospital for the absurdly wealthy, and Bleys' room was a five room suite. He had two fireplaces and a private pool. This was in his hospital room. The theory being if he wanted to go swimming, Fiona was really rich. 

Root was in intensive care down below. I couldn't understand the locals and vice versa. We could see him through the glass, and his little pinging machine pinged. Benedict allowed me to watch him for a while to make a point his oaths were being fulfilled, but eventually their patience expired. I was lead to Bleys' apartments and took the couch with the best view of the bay. Fiona reclined by the fireplace, and Benedict explored the bar. Why would a hotel suite ever have an in-room bar? Because Fiona was really rich.

"You may begin," Benedict continued, finding a whiskey to his liking.

"I am Finndo," I said finally. "I've been in hiding in Isenmist for almost a hundred years-"

"No, you aren't. Your name is Roland, and you were born in Arryn. You're a professional fighter. Finndo hired you as a sparring partner, and you fell to Isenmist when he destroyed that shadow. Since then you've been half mad hermit, half glorious warrior, there's an issue with your cult, and you have a strange obsession with blood transfusions," interrupted Fiona. "Try again."

I blinked. Benedict sat down with his whiskey soda as if the conversation had not yet started. Bleys was drinking rum, fifteen year, very smooth. 

"If you know all that, why am I even telling you anything?" I demanded.

"Because otherwise your friend Root would be dead. He's not your liegeman; he's your friend, and he's currently on life support, ventilation, and for reasons you will explain, an incredibly strong cocktail of antibiotics," Benedict replied. "You may begin," he repeated. 

This was some bullshit.

I told them everything. Everything I've told you I spilled out between beers and food. They tried to pin me down on a few points, but I wasn't lying or withholding information. We haggled over details, and on a few occasions, they insisted I was wrong. I gave them suggestions regarding self-procreation that they could insist on as well. It's possible their arguments were aimed at stress-testing my story, and it's possible they're group of elitist turds that don't believe anything they hear from 'lesser men.' In the end they had the whole of it, to believe or doubt as they felt inclined. 

In their interrogation they had taught me a few things about them. First, Benedict did not like Fiona or Bleys, and he was the power in the room. The redheads formed a unit front against him, one of strange lore and comradery. They knew things he did not. During my description of Finndo first giving me his blood, Benedict almost unconsciously checked with Fiona for agreement or refusal. When she shrugged, he did not argue. 

Secondly, Benedict was much older than they, and I think, via some pointed guesswork, a full blooded sibling of Finndo. He certainly knew my namesake and face-donor better than either of them. There was the same subtle cross interrogation of him on those matters from Bleys, who had less stoic control of his emotions than Fiona. I gleaned the basics of their genealogies, that they had the same father, Oberon, who was now dead, and that the redheads were full siblings and Benedict was their eldest brother, a half sibling. 

I also intimated that Benedict was not the current king, that being Random, and this had been a matter of some vigorous debate. I gained the names of some of their other siblings, Gerard, one called Caine, and the elephant in the room, Corwin, who we did not discuss. Fiona and Bleys were casual siblings, and they liked and irritated each other with effortless ease. Benedict was guarded and careful, and I think they'd all be ordered to get along and play nice. 

At one point, sometime around the telling of the shoggoth, we ordered room service. Four star hospital food had never been an option any point I was sick, but Benedict was displeased in the nature of the olives. They were smaller and harder than he preferred, not quite ripe. With a plastic knife he cut several into slices for a sandwich. The important thing is he did it freehand, without spearing them with a fork or bracing against the corner of the plate. He just flicked them off the bread, sliced them apart, spatulated them back, and spread a little mustard around. None of them seemed to notice that, but I did. 

So we came to the conclusion of the story. I lead them right up their own arrival, and finished with Root's question for them. "Why did it take you so long to show up?"

Sandwich finished, eldest Benedict rose and walked out onto the balcony. Bleys looked to Fiona, passing this question to her with obvious distaste. She thought about it, and broke it to me gently.

"We didn't. Bleys and I were together when he got the call, and Benedict was with us for an unrelated reason. We came immediately. If it took a few months for us to arrive, that means time passes differently in Amber and Isenmist."

"A few minutes to a few months? That's an absurd time differential."

"It's atypically high," she agreed. 

There was a long strained silence. They were waiting for something, and I didn't know what it was. I went back through what I'd told them, and the day or so we'd been in the place called Earth. I took a careful inventory but didn't find anything.

"What?" I demanded.

"How long have you been here?" asked Bleys.

"About a day-"

And everything made sense. A month to a minute, was- I quietly stood up and went to a notepad to do some math.

"Your Isenmist is gone," Fiona explained. "Their children have passed, and their children's children are old."

Yet again, everyone you know is dead, and you are adrift in a sea of shadow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have great difficulty breaking chapters into reasonable chunks.


	4. Chapter 4

4

In the wake of the pattern walking, I kept it together. A little rum burned the rough edges off. Yve would be gone. Years gone. If she lived to a hundred, it would have been decades ago her time she passed. She had had a really great dog. Omote steps had burned the little monster white. He liked jumping on people, wasn't terribly house-broken. Yve had a gentle way about her with dogs. They believed her confidence. She was always better with them than people. People never believed her, but dogs did. 

"So on to Amber?" I asked.

"Soon. Random will want to hear your story himself."

"Good. Having answered your questions, I have a few. First, who is Finndo?"

Fiona and Bleys had a silent consultation. Fiona accepted the burden of answering.

"Finndo was one of our eldest brothers. He was Benedict's brother."

"Why do you say was?"

"He died. Abbreviating matters, Oberon fathered three children with Cymnea: Benedict, Finndo, and Osric. Shortly thereafter Oberon fathered several children with Faiella, and retroactively annulled his wedding with Cymnea. Finndo and Osric took dire view of that and entered into conflict with the king. Thereafter they died for the good of Amber. This was several thousand years ago, Amber time."

"And you're children of Faiella?" I asked.

"No," she replied with more grace than usual. She was more refined than either of the others, but now she acted with practiced perfection. "Our mother was Clarissa."

Bleys was biting his tongue. Fiona met my eyes with a gaze like a challenge, and I was reminded of an iron hand in a velvet glove.

"Was he a fencer?" I asked.

"Finndo?" she queried, and I nodded to the affirmative. The air cleared slightly, as the redheads considered this odd question. "We're all trained with the sword. It is only fitting for the blood of Amber."

"Were you trained to fight or were you trained to fence?" I pressed. 

"There are always elements of the one in the other," she answered. She sounded like she didn't understand the question, but she also could have been hedging. She wore that artificial grace. 

"I will ask your brother," I decided and went out onto the balcony before they could reply. "Sir Benedict, a question about your brother, Finndo. Did he know sport fencing?"

Of my magnificent collection of faux pas, that was a top fiver. Benedict's attention settled on me like a glacier, and his eyes provided the coldness.

There was something odd about his right arm. It was very still and gloved, but his fingers brushed the railing as he turned. The limb didn't look fake.

"What, exactly, do you mean?" he asked.

"Sport fencing, as opposed to combat fencing. Movement restricted to only forward and back. Leg positioning like so." I demonstrated Sandy's stance. It had been a century ago, but I remembered it well. 

Benedict assayed me from head to feet, a glance that cut like razors. His dour frown never relented, but his eyes didn't miss much.

"He knew such a stance."

The redheads emerged to hear this, Bleys hobbling. I continued pressing well above my station.

"Did he advance like so? Retreat like so? Was he slow to use the space from side to side? Was he ever taught to box, wrestle, or brawl?"

"I'm disinclined to address this topic. Perhaps you labor under confusion of what your status among us is." 

"Possibly. Let's go visit your king then. He's going to ask these questions, and I'm curious about the answers." I shrugged. Poor, stupid me, out of shadow. I didn't know any court manners. Benedict considered murdering me with that sword he was wearing. I thought I could take him. 

"That may be advisable," agreed Fiona over my shoulder. 

"Yes," breathed Benedict softly. "Let's."

"I will be staying here with the invalid," Bleys said, setting himself apart. "There's no reason to move him. You three have fun."

"Indeed," Benedict replied. His half brother reminded me of something, though, and I turned to the tall swordsman. 

"I'm going to look in on him before we leave. I do not think he's awake yet, but no matter." I had to bite back pride to finish, and the bitter taste of gall burned my throat. However matters must be met. "You have fulfilled your word in every way. I know there's no guarantees in medical care, but-" I nearly gagged. "Thank you. I am in your debt."

Benedict's expression cut me little slack. However he was not unmoved. "You're welcome. I'll go with you. I don't think you'll run, but if you want a message passed, or a token left, I'll translate for you."

I wanted to bite him instead of thank him, but I nodded and we went down. Root was out. His chart had a list of infections that pushed the boundaries of hospital wide quarantine, and I wasn't sure how he'd functioned for months if he was that sick. It could have been a blind. It didn't feel like it. I had no tokens or signet, and Root couldn't read. I went to the gift shop and acquired a potted plant and clay dog, leaving them at his bedside. I marked Bleys' room for the bill. 

The elevator ride was icy. We made no conversation.

In the penthouse Fiona was ready. She produced another card, similar to the one that had taken us here, and held it before us. There was a sensation of movement and distance, then we were gone.

King Random, First of His Name, was drumming in 7/8 time with one hand on the Royal Throne, the other dangling a close written parchment before his head. He was a wiry little guy with quick eyes and fast hands. His head bobbed with music only he could hear, and his feet were working invisible cymbals and bass. The parchment danced before him. Near the crescendo where the hats were going wild, he put it down to scratch out a line, and the entire symphony stopped. After two rereads of the new paragraph, he started up again, and the silent beat rolled on. Fiona announced our presence with a delicate cough.

"Aw, you came to see me," he gloated in obvious sarcasm, looking up. 

"I long for family. Why aren't you on your kit in the library?" Fiona asked, approaching the royal person.

"The royal stewards are mopping the royal floors, and the cleaning agent they use has military applications. Ask your brother about tactical retreats. Speaking of, good evening, Benedict. Long time, no see, but I'm pleased you're here again. Who's your friend?"

"Good evening, Random," Benedict replied. He did not elaborate.

Random put the parchment down to look between Fiona and I, eyes an open question.

"This is Roland, out of shadow," she introduced me. "I'd love to speak to you in private, if you have a moment."

"For you, of course," he agreed, and got up. The royal hall wasn't crowded, but people came and went. The King lead us through side doors and private corridors to an office on the west wing. Sunlight bars lanced from narrow windows to the bare stone walls. He put the parchment in a box on the desk and shut the door behind us. 

"This is Roland, out of shadow," Fiona said again. "Tell me, does he look familiar at all?"

Random regarded me carefully, and this time his eyes did not glance off like they had before. He did not rush his inspection. "Familially familiar. I've seen that face before but with a different name."

"And that's the crux of the matter. He says he got his face from some called Sandy, whom other people have called Finndo. This was two days ago Amber time."

"That raises certain issues."

"You noticed."

Random sat on his desk and drummed, syncopated time, 2/4 beat, pinky taps on the upside. Finally he rang a bell. When the servant appeared, the king went into the hallway to talk, and the three of us sat in silence. Time stretched interminably, and I felt every month that would be passing in Isenmist as the minutes rolled by. Finally Random returned with an oversized painting. He propped up next to me, and it was like looking in a mirror. 

Sandy was standing regally on the first of three stairs. He had one leg raised to the third step and crossed hands on his knee. He was wearing finery of felt and satin, and tights of green. At his side was an elegant rapier, and he even had the stupid little hat.

Without being prompted, I stood up and put my foot on the chair to imitate the pose. Once I had it down, Fiona crossed to Random, and they compared me with my visage. Benedict remained where he was.

"The details look right to me. Big brother, being the only one of us who met the original man in question, what do you say?"

"He's got it. Attitude and personality are a little off, but it's been a few years. He even mimed Finndo's stance," Benedict agreed.

Random sighed. "Ah, my cagey family. Family dinners are like pulling teeth. All right, I'll ask the questions on everyone's mind. How do we know this isn't Finndo himself?"

"That would be due to Bleys and I," said Fiona. The candles cast a soft glow behind her, and made her an auburn halo.

"Speaking of, where is he?"

"Earth. He's indisposed."

"Indisposed," Random repeated. 

"Something happened to him," I explained. 

"Don't speak of yourself in the third person," Random replied, guessing where I was going. "It gives you airs. What did you do to him?"

"Broke his knee, and beat him like a red-" I got there before my brain caught up with my mouth. "Badly."

They were all looking at me. I got that look a lot. It wasn't flattering. "You ambushed him?"

"Nope. Straight fight. Me and my friend Root vs him." I filled in the details. 

"You. Beat Bleys. With your fists." Random was looking at me judgmentally.

"Root once said I've only got one goat in my pen. I do, but he is a mean and ugly goat."

Random waited a long time, and then turned to Fiona. "He really doesn't know who we are. You can hear how proud he is, but he really doesn't get it. He's putting on airs like he's not of shadow, and yet I don't think he understands why the things he's proud of matter."

"That's one of the reasons I don't think he's Finndo," Fiona replied. "From his attitude to his preconceptions, he's all wrong."

"Could be a Ganelon."

"Could be, and I want to get a few of us together to try the trump together. It's worth being certain."

"You know, I'm right here," I interrupted.

"So you are. Very well, Roland of Shadow. Tell me everything."


	5. Chapter 5

5

It took a few more hours, but I brought them up to speed. Random pressed me for details, and I gave him all but my speculations about the royal family. He made a few interruptions of note.

At the mention of Vincent, he brought in a painting of Finndo's brother Osric. They weren't the same. When I repeated that Vincent had called me a tinath, he casually provided me with a translation. Literally it meant unclean vagina. It was a gutteral euphanism he had come across in shadow. He made a few notes on scratch paper. He requested I abstain from most of my editorials on combat, which was his loss, and tried to pin down my experiences in my one solo shadow journey. I didn't have the words. He made a few more notes. Nothing else ellicited comment until Derwent discussed being in Amber and building his own pattern. 

"I think you were lied to," Random interrupted.

"I was lied to a lot, but those were the lies in question," I agreed. 

"Yes," he said, nodding slowly.

I took a pen and paper and rapidly sketched the pattern of Derwent. My likeness wasn't great. He examined it.

"Similar. Certainly a resemblance. This part isn't as twisty."

"That part was hard."

He sighed. "This isn't something that needs to be dealt with now. Siblings, and you, I am going to bed. Do not leave during the night. We will talk in the morning."

Fiona and I rose as he left, whereas Benedict had never sat. Neat way of avoiding the gesture. Those two had reserved rooms in the palace, and I was put up in a guest suite. Nice place. Indoor plumbing in a castle. I didn't know that was a thing.

Breakfast was a royal affair. Eight courses of meat, fruit, and delicious pastry followed one another in endless succession. My server, I was his only charge, took my appetite as a personal insult. He blotted it from the earth. Soon I pleaded with him to let me be, and with coffee and whiskey, I sat at the table put aside for me in the dining hall. Royal affairs are for family, leaving my table in a nice corner. 

Random sat in a tense but spread crowd of his kin, several of whom had arrived during the night. With his back to the wall sat Caine, dark haired and fine boned. There was something cold about him, even as he laughed. He brought his hat with him, three cornered, and wore what passed for a suit here, breeches, silk shirt and jacket, and sailor's shoes. Buckles held him together. 

Near him was scale-mailed Julian. He was more reserved than his uninterested brother. Riding boots reached his calves, and he wore a belt with a crop. Claw marks scored his gloves, like he was used to riding with birds of prey.

Benedict sat before Random, and there was a subtle war between them. The older was infallibly polite, yet he was never in a position to give way. He never called his sibling anything but Random. The king didn't seem to notice. Fiona sat at his side, and she revelled at being the center of attention. 

I'd met Vaille only briefly, and she did not join us this time. She seemed nice. We hadn't talked.

A door ground open, and Gerard entered. Bloated and fat as I was, I put my coffee down when he appeared. 

There was a spreading intensity to him. Not in his face or features, which were both plain and uninspiring, but the way he shouldered the door open. The lintel drew back as he passed beneath, and the doorframe made way. His steps made no noise on the floor. I was on my feet when he came, and in that instant, I noticed Benedict as well.

Benedict stared back at me, calculating. The position of his hands and shoulders loomed out of the royal crowd. The butter knife at his fingers gleamed, as did the tines of his fork, the silvered edge of the plates. I read his attention. It was swifter than Gerard's, focused now on me, but less powerful. Benedict's big little brother recognized me as I him, and we nodded.

I sat back down, but a veil had been pulled away. Now I was aware of two enemies of note in the crowd of siblings, and they tugged my consciousness. I barely tasted the bitter coffee, but bent my attention to it to ignore the company.

Suddenly there was an intense feeling of presence. It was slippery and false. I sneezed and looked up, finding myself in the midst of some trick photography. 

Before me was the royal party, clustered around Random, and yet I'd pointedly turned my back on them. Everyone was staring at a card in the king's hand, and through it at me. I looked away, and found myself looking at them again, over my shoulder. They were both in front and behind. It was the nonsense of circuses and amateur photo manipulation. I tried to look away from them both.

"It won't work," said Caine. "He's right there."

"But that isn't him!" insisted Fiona.

"Perhaps, but he's close enough."

"Stop. Roland of Shadow, join us for a moment," ordered Random, and the two ceased their quarrel. 

I got up, feeling the sense of presence fade, even as I joined them. Their impressions vanished over my shoulder. Grim Benedict sat beside his hulking brother, and I positioned myself by Random with a good view of them both. 

Random recapitulated an argument without any of the name calling and insults. "There were no trumps of Finndo in the library, Father's archives, nor among his personal effects. There were also no trumps of Arthur, yet we did find cards regarding Osric, Brand, and Deirdre. Arthur's picture does not hand in the hall, but there's nothing suspicious about that. I remember Dad throwing it in the fire myself. You all do too, if you'll admit it or not. We have a good likeness of Finndo, but trump contact gives us only Roland of Shadow."

"Whom we know isn't Finndo how?" repeated Caine.

"Gut instinct," Random replied, overruling Fiona before she finished opening her mouth. "Which is enough."

"Which might not be enough to make a trump of him anyway," inserted Fiona. "He is the image of Finndo, intentionally I might add, and he's present. We don't know what powers Finndo used to hide himself, and they're obviously misdirecting our attempts back to the ringer." She waved at me. 

"Sister, I remember not too long ago you were an initiate of the mysteries of Dworkin himself. Now you can't make a trump work?" Caine replied. 

Random didn't have the energy to stop the two of them. He wanted to, but he looked defeated. 

"What about Bleys?" asked Gerard. "Why can't he aid you?"

"He's doing me a favor," replied Benedict. "He's staying with Roland's liege man while he recovers on Earth."

"Whom he stabbed?"

"Thus if this Root becomes a problem again, Bleys will handle it," Benedict assured him.

"What about Arthur?" demanded Julian.

"I've never met Arthur," replied Fiona. She smiled poisonously. 

"Sir," I said to Random.

"Yes," he replied, and sighed. "Roland of Shadow, these are my brothers Caine, Julian, and Gerard. Brothers, this is Roland of Shadow. You recall whom Finndo and Osric are?"

"I do." I nodded.

"We have three other deceased brothers. Eric and Brand are dead. We're sure. Arthur is our final sibling. He lived, walked the pattern, and died very swiftly, when none of us-"

"But Bleys," interrupted Caine.

"-was in residence. He was born in a shadow where time moved differently than here. Fiona told me how you came to learn about time flows." Random nodded, but didn't offer condolences. "We don't know much about him. No one was home because at that time, our father was in one of his less temperate moods. He and Arthur had words, and apparently one of them raised a whip to the other. Arthur left shortly thereafter, not to return. I was, I think, the first one back afterwards. I caught Dad destroying any traces of Arthur he could find. As such we don't know what he looks like, don't have a trump of him, and can only speculate if he's this Vincent you were talking about."

I look around at the group of them. They were partially aware of me. Caine was glaring daggers at Fiona, who couldn't care less. Siblings, I attributed it. Julian was annoyed to be here. Gerard sat like a quiet, dampening presence, and Benedict wasn't exactly arguing with Random about anything. As far as I'd heard, he'd agreed with everything the king had said. And yet...

"Do you all remember Finndo?" I asked. "Did he fence? Sport fencing, not combat worthy."

"He was trained as a Prince of Amber," Caine replied. 

"Yes, but did he know how to fight?"

Caine looked to me in tacit threat and waited. 

"Well, neat as that would be, I can't imagine your father would intentionally train one of his children wrong, and then get him killed in battle. All things aside, that's just implausible."

There was a long, icy silence. Finally Julian asked, "Did you really just say that out loud?" Everyone was looking at me again.

"Would you people just tell me what's going on!?" I yelled and waved my hands.

"In your ignorance, I notice a peculiar ability to say adroit things. I knew a tactician with a similar ability once," said Caine quietly. His words were soft with hidden malice. 

I gave up. This was like pulling teeth. I sighed and waved my hands, wishing I had a white flag. 

"Perhaps our discussion should be limited to the family," suggested Benedict casually.

Random nodded, his face still withdrawn. "I will join you in the library. Roland, come with me."

The princess and princes filed out one door, while the king and I left another. He took me to a battlement, where warm air lifted the scent of the sea against cold mountain winds. Random perched on a stone castellan in a crevice of a tower and lit a cigarette. He offered me one.

"No, thanks."

"Worried about cancer?"

"Yes," I replied obviously, not sure why that needed to be asked.

Random didn't say anything. He nodded and thought, and let little wisps of smoke get kidnapped by the wind. 

"A while ago I ran into my brother Corwin after having not seen him for some years. I was being chased by some bruisers at the time, and he offered me shelter, helped me take care of my problem. After that we headed here but didn't make it immediately. We were diverted to Rebma where I met met. Vaille. You met her, didn't you? In the hallway?"

"Briefly," I acknowledged. "We didn't talk. She seems nice."

Random nodded again. Had I offered insufficient praise? Kings and queens have their own sets of rules. But he didn't look outraged. He drew deeply on the cigarette and waited, watching smoke while his mind wandered. I didn't know what he was getting at.

"She is. More so than most realize. Vaille is interesting, and I can say that without just being her husband. Vaille isn't a power of Amber. She never walked the pattern, she holds no great conferences. In the annals of manipulation, many members of our family are masters, but Vaille isn't. And yet, there's a subtle power in her that most people miss. You'd be surprised how many men think power is only in combat, and how many women think it's the ability to bend others to their will. They think of power in control, and the refusal to be controlled. There's truth to that, but there's also strength in understanding. It's not flashy, and the noble heroines of legend aren't gentle and deep. I didn't-" He paused for a long time, for admission of a weakness from a king to a peasant was difficult. Yet in some way it was tied to the way he spoke of his wife. "-understand that at first. I grew up here, where Oberon was the Power on the throne, and he dwarfed us, his children, who thought ourselves gods in our own right. It was a confusing time. Gentleness doesn't have much of a place, and it's hard to see.

"Learning that got me in the habit of learning again, which is a hard habit to pick up when you already know a lot," he continued, exchanging his dead smoke for another. "But it's easier if you realize that's what you need to do. Going back to Corwin, after we got to Rebma we were separated, and we each pursued different paths. It was much later we met again, and I finally had the chance to explain to him why those guys had been chasing me. One of those things I learned was sharing information. That's not a lesson Oberon taught. But I learned it, after Vaille."

He began the story of the Patternfall War with Corwin's disappearance from Amber at the hands of Eric. He explained how they had searched for him, and how Brand had disappeared not long after. He told of his sally to free Brand, which had not succeeded, and then picked up the thread of Corwin's adventures. He avoided the time he and Vaille lived together in Amber, and I didn't pry. In rough chronological order Random fed me four hundred odd years of history.

"We haven't seen Corwin since. He told Merlin he intended to walk his own pattern, and a period of a few short years exploring shadow is nothing unusual. He cannot be reached by trump, but that's not necessarily unusual either. It may be. As best we know, there are no other patterns in shadow, so if he is deep in the many worlds of his, it might be natural for trumps to fail to reach him. 

"When we talk of Ganelon, what we mean is you might be someone known to us pretending to be someone else. When Oberon wore that face, he had a tendency to come up with some really brilliant plans, and he was always discounted because he was just a mortal. My siblings aren't going to be taken by surprise in that way again. When you said Oberon wouldn't have taught Finndo to fence but left him unprepared for battle, that was a Ganelon moment because that was exactly the sort of thing Oberon would do. It's so obvious, I think my entire family is furious you thought of it first. But that doesn't win anyone to your cause, because many will think that only an Amberite could come up with something we didn't. So you're painted as an actor in thicker strokes."

"Is there any way to prove I'm not your father or a dead brother?" I asked.

"You could walk the pattern and die," Random replied, looking up through half-lidded eyes.

"Let's make that plan B."

The king smiled faintly. He looked tired. 

"Your father was a bit of a dick," I observed.

"We noticed."

"No offense. Respect to the dead."

"Absolutely."

"I noticed everyone hedged carefully around mentioning Bleys got his leg broken. Is there a reason for that or general paranoia?"

"In this house, that is a reason," Random explained. "I'd hoped things would improve. They did. We haven't had a fratricide since the war, but naively, I expected more. Fiona and Bleys aren't precisely welcome. Words aren't said, but they have spend much time in Shadow. Julian's always been fond of Fiona, but I think everyone else is still carrying their millstones. Perhaps that's why we're so strong. You emerge, escorted by those two, and every shadow of suspicion on them falls on you too. Roland, this is not the best place for you."

"But where else can I go? In two days it's been two hundred years in Isenmist. Would I recognize that place? Do I want to return to a shadow of a land I loved, where the shapes are the same but the faces are different? I'd be forever walking in on people I expected to know, and be reminded of how long I've been gone."

"How do you know it's been two hundred years?" Random asked.

"Because...Fiona and Bleys said so."

"Oh," Random replied. 

I stood nonplussed. "You think they lied?"

"I don't think anything. I don't know, and I suspect everyone. That's not tiring until you meet someone you don't suspect, and you realize how much work it is carrying your suspicions and grudges. But you suspect no one, and Amber isn't a good place for people like you."

"Well then, your Majesty, what do you think I should do?"

"My Majesty?" Random hinted at a smile. "This is a trump. It is one of mine. If you hold the card before you and focus, you will sense contact. I will become aware of you. Once contact is established we can talk, and either of us can step through. Keep it safe."

I put it in an interior pocket, but Random wasn't finished.

"Of course, getting to Isenmist is the trick. If you're who you say you are, you can't walk there through shadow. Nor could you walk the pattern and order it to take you there. That's one of its powers but off limits to you. Bleys, Benedict, and Fiona have been to Isenmist, but if the redheads are the ones lying to you, they're not going to help disprove their own stories. I don't know how you managed to irritate Benedict so much, but you did, and I'm not going to order him to take you back. What did you do, by the way?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "I just really don't like him."

"The feeling seems mutual. Of all possible feuds, you chose Benedict," he wondered. 

"Things happen. Does that help me with your kin? You said Ganelon tried to curry favor with Benedict and picking that fight didn't help me."

"Yes, but it may have been a blind. There's a subtlety that comes from intentionally making errors for appearances."

"Now you're being absurd. If every mistake is a gambit, but every victory a signal of my genius, you're just making evidence fit a theory." I palmed my face.

Random shrugged. I realized he'd been wrestling with a decision and finally made it with a sense of fatality. "There's another way to do it. I'm going to introduce you to my son, Martin."

"Ah, ok."

"He's trained in Logrus magic. There are other ways of moving through shadow, some of which are closed to us. Not so him. He can help you."

"I appreciate it and all, but are you sure about this?"

Random rolled his eyes at me without answering. Instead he produced another Trump, a worn card he carried apart from his deck in a pocket in his jacket. He stared and contact came quickly. After a moment he reached out his hand, and then Martin was before us. He introduced us.

Martin was wiry, like his father, but a little taller. He had a buzz and face scruff, jeans and a leather jacket. His face took after his father, but he didn't have the king's cynicism. There was a broadsword on his hip. Random explained the crux of the matter to him.

"Can it be done?" he asked.

"Sure." Martin shrugged. "I'll take him. I don't suppose you can paint or sing?" he asked me.

"No. Is that a problem?"

Martin shook his head. "There are a few shortcuts, but we can still take the long way. I'll take him," he repeated to his father.

"Good man," agreed Random awkwardly, and the two of them looked at each other. Finally they shook hands. Then the king excused himself, and Martin shuffled through a deck of trumps of his own. "You ready to go? You're not carrying a sword."

"I don't use one."

"Whatever you say," assented the Crown Prince of Amber and took us from the castle.


	6. Chapter 6

6

By trump he lead me to a strange island where waves broke on emerald sand. Further out to sea they grew higher and higher, until at the horizon they were just white clouds, scuttling across the sky above and oceans below. There was only one tree, and it rose from a broken stone pedestal, ringed by dozens of stairways, most of which were crumbled beyond use. He hopped between three to come to the top. There was a pool there that reflected the cloud waves perfectly. 

"The reason I asked you about painting or singing was that the Pool of Isis responds to them. It will show me meaning in your words." As he spoke the reflections shivered across the surface, and a red mist like thick wine poured from his mouth. Out of that danced letters and books, and they opened to professors teaching. "However that is not the only way. If you describe Isenmist well enough, we'll see it here. Then it is a matter of stepping through."

"What is this place?"

"It's like a geographic trump," he explained. "It's a shortcut around the walking. Merlin showed me."

I stood over the pool and looked in. It showed my face and sky, typical pool stuff, and a stray leaf of the lone tree spun around. It was veiny at edges, waterlogged. Hills of water pushed through holes between the dermal branching. Its green was going brown. There might have been leaves like it in Isenmist.

I had no idea. I had never learned. In that moment I truly felt defeated and settled down on my haunches with a sigh. What was I going to do, punch the water?

"Can I take a minute?"

"Sure. Compose your thoughts?"

"Something like that." I stretched out my hands to see the veins under the skin. They were flat, unlike those in the leaf, but bulged over the tendons to my fingers. Fine tracery of scars played out on my wrists, and gauntlet scrapes over the knuckles and contact points looked too old to heal. "What's the time rate like here?"

"To Amber? Around three to one. Why? Are you going to take a while?"

"No, I- No. It's just a thing. Remember the whole reason I'm hurrying back is the time rate. I was just worried."

Martin nodded. At some point he'd gauged his ears, but they were empty holes now. Missing the plugs they looked weird. 

"May I ask about you? What have you been up to?"

He looked askance; not offended, just surprised that I asked. "I run a chain of bakeries," he replied. 

Of all the answers I was expecting, that was not one. "Are you a baker?"

"I am, but that's not what I do any more. I'm the managing founder. Mostly I do business plans, promotion schedules, that sort of thing. Right now I'm establishing financing for an expansion." He half-smiled, exactly like his father. "Every week or so I go into a kitchen, but everyone's worried about impressing the boss and keeping their jobs. I never get to actually make anything unless I pitch a fit, and then the cooks all think they're fired for a day. It was funny the first few times."

"May I ask why?"

Martin sat down across the pool from me, doing that little trick with his sword to avoid gouging himself in the belly. "Because I was curious. I was a musician for a while. I've been a white water tour guide and a surgeon. The surgeon thing was most recent. It was a good experience, but it didn't grip me. My fellow doctors either hated or loved it, the work, the atmosphere, or the stress. After I paid off my loans, which my father finds hilarious, I stayed around for a few years because it's a good thing to know, but I didn't really care. In the end I tied up some loose ends and walked away. Climbed a few mountains, met a few gurus, and decided I wasn't ready yet to hear the really great truths of shadow. Well, I heard them, but they passed over me." He flicked the wandering leaf across the pool, and it rippled the sky. 

"So I found a place I liked, and found a thing I liked doing, and did it. After a while I got pretty good at it, and people liked it, so I opened another bakery. Eventually I opened a whole string of them. Someday I'll take you to that shadow. Now-" he paused. "Now I still like it, but it's different. It's not as fun, but it's deeper. My loan got denied, so I've got to either incorporate and release an initial offering, or keep chasing banks. I'm leaning towards the former."

"But you're an Amberite. Walk off, find a pot of gold, a chest of treasure, or simply rewrite shadow so your muffins trade for fortunes a pound."

"I could," he agreed. "I won't, but I could."

By a shrug I asked him why. He answered. He wanted to explain himself and not for me. "Because that's ignoring everything of shadow. That's an admission that shadow doesn't mean anything. Bake what I may, save a life, climb a mountain, it's all just images in shadow if I walk them. If I don't play by the rules of shadow, then I'm not playing that game. No matter what I do, I'm really just playing Prince of Amber and the universe is my sandbox. Then I'm trapped in the sandbox, and the walls are the edges of infinity, but they're still walls, and I can get there whenever I want. If I ever feel free, I just need to start walking, and I'll realize I'm still trapped in my sandbox. Dad's sandbox he put me in, like Oberon before him. 

"But if I don't, then I'm not in that sandbox. Then I'm not playing a game my father made me. I'm living by my own rules in shadow, and it's up to me not to break them."

"But aren't you still trapped by your own rules?" I asked.

"I think we all are. I think the point of the game is to find out what your own rules are."

I nodded slowly. 

"Do you smoke?" he asked.

"No. Worried about the cancer."

"Me neither, but not because of that. I don't want to ruin my sense of smell."

"Who taught you to use that?" I indicated the blade on his hip.

"Benedict."

"Rumor is he's the best."

"Add my voice to that rumor."

"I wonder," I admitted, looking at the clouds. The leaf-boat pulled up at my shore, and I sent it back to the prince. 

"That's not a healthy area for curiosity," Martin warned me, but he was smiling when he said it. 

"Wait until you meet Sandy. Finndo. Whomever. Actually, no, I hope you don't."

 

"Why? Do you think he's the best?" He was amused by the thought. 

"No. Not with a blade or with his fists. But he's stronger than I am. Much stronger. That is going to be an interesting time."

"What if he has a sword and you don't?"

I looked up slowly from the pool where I couldn't see Isenmist. My attention fixed on Martin. "That won't help him."

He looked away. I was getting a handle on our dynamic. Martin saw me as one of his Dad's friends and was giving me the diffidence that entailed. But I was coming to the realization I couldn't move around my problem. I couldn't describe Isenmist.

I looked around, focusing on details. The sun scintillated through red and gold, hidden behind clouds but peaking through occasionally. There was a steady wind from the south-west, thick with sea-smell and something pungent. On the beaches the sand wasn't smooth. It lay in ripples, with accumulations of seaweed or algae on the high side. Each little ridge was outlined in black. 

"I got nothing," I admitted. "I can't describe Isenmist."

"My father said you lived there for years," Martin replied.

"I did. Most of a century. I don't remember what it looks like. I don't know what color the sky is, nor what kind of trees grow. I can't describe a winter or a mountain range." I swore softly. "They are going to think I'm a Ganelon."

"That doesn't seem possible," Martin admitted obliquely. He'd gotten up and stood some distance away. 

"Let it be a warning on obsession. I got fixated and forgot the world around me."

"Someday I'll give you a book about a whale my Dad gave me."

I admitted defeat by another shrug. What had I been doing? Martin was outside kicking range. I'd need two steps to leap, or five to close intelligently. His weight was all wrong for a quick draw. The waves behind him were breaking like he had wings of foam. I made a soft fist and regarded it.

"This thing. The Pool of Isis you called it. You said it's like a trump?" I asked.

"Superficially. The mechanics are different, but the result is the same if you can travel shadow on your own. I have to do the work, but it routes me to my destination."

"Trumps find people. Can this take me to a person, not a place?"

"Yes, but they'll know you're coming. They can also block or refuse contact."

"But if he doesn't. If he's too arrogant to refuse contact or too confident to hide. If I can make contact, you can look and see where he is, even if he doesn't allow me through. Then you can take me there, right?"

"Roland, your tone is reminding me more and more of that book about the whale."

"Can this take me to Finndo?" I asked and sounded very reasonable to me.

Martin nodded glacially without indicating assent. Perhaps he was assenting that he had heard my request. After some time, he said, "It is possible that it can."

"Then let me tell you of him, so you can take me to him."

"And you want this-"

"So I can get my hands on him."

"Right," Martin said. The leaf had drifted back to his side of the pool, and he poked it with his sword. The point lanced the skin, and water pushed in to form another surface-tension hill. 

That was incidental wonder to me. It reminded me of home.

"Your meeting with Finndo will probably be a bit climactic," Martin said, hedging his words in oblique angles to his point. "Are you sure you want that now?"

"There is nothing else! Amber is closed to me, and I can't walk through shadow. Arryn is dead. My world is dead, and Finndo killed it. Isenmist is- I can't describe it. Yes, I know, you don't believe me, but if you've never felt true unity of purpose, you don't understand. But Finndo, oh, I can describe Finndo. I can paint a trump of him we could march a legion through. All I need is to get within range."

"Well, about that," Martin was trying to calm me down. I hated it when people did that. "I never said I don't believe you, but I do need a description. Is there anyone else who can give me a description?"

"Well, Root, but we can't get to him either."

"Is he in Isenmist?"

"No, some other place. Earth. But all I saw of that was the hospital. I can't describe the shadow."

Martin blinked at me several times. "Earth? The name of the shadow is Earth?"

"You know it?"

"I went to med school and did my residency there!"

We had a preempted face off. "Root's in a place called Saint Mary's Long Beach."

"That's in Miami. They host a convention every year devoted to cosmetic surgery for traumatic injuries. I went once. Nice time but not up to the advertising. I remember it. Want to go?"

"Oh. Well, yes."


	7. Chapter 7

7

We arrived in a part of Miami where clothes were illegal. Only bikini's were allowed. 

Martin was experienced with this place, got us transportation to the hospital, and explained matters. "Since you don't know which wing he's in, we'll split up. Don't go through any red doors, because you need a badge. Don't mug anyone and take their badge. See those little black globes? Those are cameras, and security is watching. But visitors can generally come and go as they please, so feel free to move around. I'll take the Hollywood Hills Wing, and you take the East Wing. If stopped, argue loudly in whatever language you want, just don't be understandable. Here's ten thousand dollars. Wave it aggressively at anyone in your way. Meet here in one hour."

"Right."

I went down a hallway choked with sick people, and crossed antechambers and courtyards that all looked the same. Eventually I hit the shop where I'd bought Root the recovery gifts, and caught my bearings. Then it was up three flights to Bleys' room, from which I knew how to get to Root's.

Out of curiosity I looked in and found the Prince of Amber. His leg was armored and swaddled, as was his head and shoulder. He had a brace on his neck and rack of IVs. I cast my mind back to professional fights that had ended as badly as his with me and realized he was, if anything, under bandaged. Inside his rooms there were no cameras, though security would have seen me go in. Yet I'd visited him before. For a moment I had privacy. 

I wish I had put my hands into my pockets to think, and there discovered the bottle of my pills and come to my idea naturally. But that wasn't it. It was the IV bag, clear and sterile, that reminded me of Isenmist. It reminded me that they were incongruously advanced in blood transfusions. When I'd been disturbed by this, that doctor had explained it to me in careful detail like I was a halfwit. I remembered that because it had annoyed me. And now the Prince of Amber lay in his sick bed.

I went and found Root. He was awake in a shared room, looking through a magazine of colorful pictures. His roommate was asleep. He nearly jumped when he saw me, but I shushed him down and drew a curtain to give us some privacy.

"Good news, bad news, worse news, danger," I said. "Good news, you're not dead. How do you feel?"

"Terrible. I got stabbed in the guts," said Root. 

"Well, that's predictable. Bad news, time moves differently in different shadows, and it's probably been two hundred years in Isenmist since we left. But we don't know that. Fiona and Bleys, he's the one who stabbed you, may have been lying. I'm going to head back and find out. Want to come?"

"Yes."

"Excellent. You need to describe the place. I can't. I'll explain later. Can you read the local language by any chance?"

"I've been here for a day and a half!"

"It was worth asking!" I retorted. "Damn. I need some sleeping drugs."

"The red bottle. The nurse just dropped it off, and I've been avoiding taking it. One drop of that, and I'm gone for hours."

"Interesting." I took his medication. "Okay. I'm going to go do something. When I come back, we're going to leave. Get ready."

"Will we be chased?" Root asked.

"Maybe."

"You know I can't run?"

"Why not?"

"Because I just got stabbed!" he yelled.

"Yeah! Two days ago!"

Root's expression was a judgement on my intellect.

"Fine! Can you get one of those wheeled chairs?" 

That stopped him. "Yes. I just have to ring for it."

"Well, ring for it. I'm going to go do a thing." 

Root looked at me hungry for whatever secret I was keeping from him. I went back upstairs and ambushed Bleys.

He was beginning to wake up, so I grabbed him by the throat and put all three drops of Root's medicine down his lips. He only struggled for a moment. I flicked his eyeball to be sure. No reaction. Then I ran a needle into him and stole his blood.

The blood that was currently laced with enough tranquilizers to incapacitate one of Finndo's kin, I reminded myself as I took the blood bag. There was a serious flaw with my plan. There were several, as I thought about it, including the alarms at the nurses station should be lighting up. But no one came. As I regarded the bar in the corner, I thought about that. Getting a room with alcohol is one thing, but could someone pay off the nurses to avoid medical alerts? Was this an Oberon question? I hid the bag under my clothes and went back to Root. He was ready.

"We're on a timeline. Move fast," I told him.

We wheeled down to our meeting with Martin, and I introduced them. The prince noticed the sudden energy, but Root covered for me, asking about Isenmist and how soon we could return. Martin asked for patience, but Root urged him on. We trumped out of a bathroom. 

We landed at the Pool of Isis, and I was snapping my fingers. I had no idea how long until coagulation, not across varying shadows. We had no time. I wheeled Root to the edge of the pool and gave instructions. Then he talked while I bounced on my heels in impatience.

I think Martin noticed something was amiss. Yet Root had all the passion for returning to Isenmist that I lacked, and I guessed Martin had been underselling the complexity of the operation. He acted like the pool was a casual affair, yet once Root began speaking the prince's eyes never left it. Whatever strange magics he worked were a matter of concentration, while mist like the clouds and waves wafted from him. The pool circled and whirled, until a great broth bubbled up into a banner before us, containing all the images of Root's words. They showed flowers by sunshine, turned amber in the soft light of memories. I saw open fields outside the sties, where kids played when they weren't watching pork. Root showed us long grass to be mowed after summer, and the mists smelled like hay. The crash of waves was bird cries. Soon the image was so clear it seemed real, and Martin stepped through it, leading us with him.

Wheelchairs don't work in Isenmist. I cannot explain it. Root's tossed an axle, spilled the patient sideways, and collapsed into parts on the grass. Root started yelling about his stab wound. Martin tried to help him, and asked me what I was doing with a needle and a blood bag.

"Nothing!" I replied. "I'll be back in a few hours!"

"What? Where are you going?"

"Out!"

And then I was gone. 

 

Like all of my plans, this one succeeded gloriously. The threshold for glorious success is me not dying, which I've been perfect at so far, and yet again, Roland knocked it out of the park. I woke up in so much pain I tried to die but didn't, and therefore notched my score one higher.

Lets not talk about the next two hours. Or any of that night. 

After that I could walk again. By morning I could do so for moderate distances at a time. Root and I stumbled back and forth, leaning on fence posts, while Martin regarded the two of us with concern. He went so far as to remove his trumps a few times but put them away unused. 

We were at a pig farm. I guessed from the pigs and the farm. Whirpols, Root called the trees, with papery bark and long trunks that didn't branch until well above head height. Then they spread fast, and the leaves were green and gold. They dropped seeds that smelled like nutmeg. The pigs loved them, Root said, and the wood was good for houses.

The locals thought we were crazy and stayed away. They brought out unleavened bread of a coarse grain, and watched from a hillside. This wasn't the village of Root's youth, but it was one he recognized. He pointed out a bent roof and three whirpols close together, their branches intertwined. 

Martin told us he was leaving. "I don't know what you're up to," he said at length. "Please don't pretend you're not up to something, but I don't know what it is. Moreover, I don't want any part in it. The King asked me to take you to Isenmist, and Root says you're here. So I wish you the best of luck and farewell."

I couldn't very well claim I wasn't up to anything. That would be insulting. So I thanked him for his aid and asked only, "If you were to become hard to find for a little while, perhaps impossible, such that no one could easily follow us here, that would be nice."

"You're greatly underestimating the people involved," replied Martin. "But I'm going back to work. Anyone who wants to find me in the bakery will be able to."

We thanked him again. "You going to release that public offering?" I asked.

"I think I will." He nodded.

"I wish you the best of luck. If I was in your market, I'd buy shares."

Martin smiled. He opened his mouth with a smirk, but thought better of whatever he almost said. Instead he nodded to both of us and walked away, out of shadow.

"You are sure you know this place?" I pressed Root.

"Absolutely. I fell out of that tree. It's why my face looks like this."

I looked hard at him, and his face looked fine. I refrained from comment. 

"So what next?" he asked.

"The Keep of Alamach," I replied. "We have unfinished business."

"You do."

I was trying to memorize the whirpols, and Root's remark surprised me. He was a few paces back.

"You do," he repeated. "You need to deal with your menace, Derwent. It's your cult that deposed Lolimar, and you should do something about that too. And they think you're this Finndo, which you should resolve. But I'm not in this. Getting stabbed didn't work for me."

"You were part of that cult. It's your business too."

"And it ended poorly. I just watched Martin walk away and I realized, I can do that too. I think I will."

"I need your help, Root."

"No, Sir Roland, you don't. You don't need to appease my ego. You took out Bleys once I was gone. I was with you for Lolimar, but that-" Hurt rippled across his face. "-was not wise of me. I will leave such activities to the great."

"I've told you my history, Root. I wasn't great. I was a man wearing a sign, and I was chosen for this because of my sign. There was no destiny or fate. It was just a job by a highway."

"But you have become great."

"And I need you to become great as well."

"I don't think I'm destined for greatness," he replied. "At least not that kind. I will return to my people and be among them."

I argued with him, but he refused. My logic fell on deaf ears. He wouldn't listen to the adventures he might have, nor the greatness he might see, nor that I needed help. He won when I could marshal no more arguments. 

"Very well. I'll walk with you to your village. I hope you change your mind."

"I won't," he told me, and we lurched off. It was three miles by foot and took the entire day. 

We agreed not to tell anyone who I was. When we got to Root's village, they recognized him and ran out to meet him, crowding around him. They welcomed him gladly and me by extension. I slept in a barn that night, sweating with the cows, and in the morning was to be on my way. Root walked me to the edge of the pig pens.

"This is where I belong," he said, indicating his home.

"Come with me."

"No."

"I never understood it in stories, and now I don't in life. You're shown the world that lies hidden, but you'll turn your back on it. You grew up in a world you left for the place I'm going, and now you stay back. I don't even have a trump to give you, in case you change your mind."

"It's because you don't understand," Root replied. "You don't see what I see. At least, not what I saw. I saw a world of angels, Roland, where you were like a god. I saw a realm of power, kings and queens, and glory. And I learned none of it is true, Roland. You're not an angel. You're a man who wore a sign. The queen broke my heart, glory is a dirty, ugly thing, and power is a poison that exists to kill other poisons so you die slower. I left my world for one thing, and you're right, I found it. But I didn't find what I was looking for, Roland. I found a dirty world of dirty fights. And I'm done."

"It's what you make it," I replied. "Martin said that. He's the son of the king of the universe, and he bakes because that's what he's made for himself."

"Goodbye, Roland."

I hung my head. "Goodbye, Root."

And I walked slowly to the north.


	8. Chapter 8

8

The first few miles were the worst. I could walk normally by the end of the day, but I kept looking back, hoping Root would reconsider. There was plenty of time for him to find courage, or ambition, or anything. There was plenty of time for him to come after me. I retired early and slept long, waking up late. The next day I didn't go fast. Nor did I go quickly the next, though I felt fine by then. On the fourth day I woke up in the bracken with bumble bees over my head. The heath was luminous with violets and clover, and weeds like dandelions were exploding into seeds. There were voles in the scrub. I sat by the road and waited, and in my stillness a mantis climbed my knee. He prayed until a bee came too close. That was my sign. I lowered the mantis to the ground and began to run. 

I went north. I pulled fruit from the trees and drank from streams. Sometimes I saw farms, but the farmers did not greet me as I passed. The valleys of Isenmist are broad, but not much for one running with endless strength. My feet devoured miles. Then the Finger Mountains swept me to their heights, and I knew my way.

I continued my new habit of looking around like I would later need someone to make a trump of this place for me. At first it was hard to see detail in the rocks, for they were stark and brutal. Fists of stone struck under bitter ice. So I figured out which mountains were crosses and which were jabs, which taught me something of how the ice striates. Then I started noticing grapples and pins. Finally I appreciated a bit of foliage climbing belligerently up a rock fall and stopped to enjoy it. It did not take much time from my running. 

The Keep of Alamach stood on a lone peak, close to a line of greater hills, but separated by a wide moor. His bees were quiet, minding their pollinations. He had said they deterred the yrch.

Once inside the halls were silent. There were no shadows under the glass ceiling, but neither were there sentries. I went first to Derwent's rooms. They were empty. I looked in on mine. The tree was still there, somewhat supple. It had been no hundred years. I moved through the halls towards the upper levels and saw movement. 

It was Lolimar. She was framed by pillars, several flights above me, and we caught sight of each other at the same time. Her face went pale. My jaw clenched, and I remembered. I stepped out of the visible isle and went upstairs, stepping lightly and cautious for traps.

She was waiting in a great hall. People of her times don't draw distinctions between private and receiving areas when homes are usually a single room. Castle Amber had separate apartments for all, but this was a lesser keep. Lolimar's Hall was her demesne to receive me and possibly my revenge.

"Sir Roland," she said, and I cut her off.

"Possibly Angel Roland. You remember that, don't you? Remember how I made a point of taking titles I disdain to support you? Remember the show I made of it in front of your people? Remember the oaths I swore? Loyalty, fealty, things like that?" My fists clenched without me, and I made them open. 

"Roland, then you remember your oaths-"

"I do. I also remember betrayal, so to hell with oaths and fealty. You sold me out. I swore to the Queen of Isenmist, and she summoned the bees, bound and betrayed me, and for what? Someone without my power. Where is Derwent now?"

"He's close," she lied, and I advanced. "The Geiger is here!" she lied again, her voice getting shrill. She was very small and human. I could put my fist through a oak tree. Odd memory to come in times of stress, that was, yet fitting. Oaks don't break cleanly in half. They shatter. She retreated. 

"So, you betrayed me for them, and they abandoned you. Just you and the bees."

"Sir Roland-"

"I swore that to the Queen of Isenmist," I said quietly. She'd put her back to a wall, and I advanced. The old rage was coming back, making it hard to breathe. "I don't see any crown on you."

"I just wanted to throne of my father and his mother. I wanted to be queen as I was born," she whispered. 

"And you aren't now." I was overcome, so angry I had to act, and in the madness of that rage, I put my hands delicately around her throat. "I would have put you back on your throne."

She inhaled deeply, like it was her last. My fingers and thumbs met around her neck, and her skin was warm and soft. I forced myself to breathe.

"I just want to be the queen my grandmother was." She put her small hands on my arms, shaking as I suppressed their movement. Her next breath was deep and slow. "Just that."

I parted my hands to clear her grip, but that opened her collar. Her collar bones were fine lines, and the subtle arcs of her breasts rounded beneath my palms. She was smaller than me and sank down to sit on her bed. I had to follow to maintain my grip. Her nimble hands moved from my arms to my sides and traced my skin through the shirt. It was very difficult to breath.

"Roland," she whispered. Somehow we were lying down, and the thin material of her dress shredded at my touch. It wrapped my fingers, and when cleared, revealed her soft skin. My hands moved over her.

"Roland," she whispered again.

 

When we woke up she was laying against my side, one leg across me with her inner thigh over my hips. Her shoulder fit in my armpit. I was supernaturally aware of her skin against me, less so the blanket over us both, and my world was the small circles she drew on my chest. 

I stirred, and she asked, "How do you feel?"

"Good. Warm," I admitted. 

"Good." 

We didn't speak for a long time. When we did, she was bemused. Her voice sounded fuzzy, like she wasn't really aware of what she said. Nothing was practiced and precise.

"You know, my father once confided in me he didn't think you were interested in women."

I craned an eyebrow at her.

"Oh, don't worry. You've convinced me otherwise," she assured me and catlike stretched. "But that's what he said."

"Why would he say that?" I muttered.

"We didn't know what to make of you. You married once but weren't blessed with children. For all your virility, we couldn't understand it."

I grumbled and moved, but she grabbed me, wedging her fingers deep into my skin. "No, don't go. I said you convinced me. I'm very convinced. But I'm surprised, and I'm trying to understand."

"When I was married, everything worked," I snapped. "But-" I didn't want to explain the details of my Amberite blood. "-sometimes children don't come."

She hushed me and stroked my face, her body molded to my side. Before I could move again she caressed my skin until I relaxed. 

It wasn't entirely her. In the wake of Random's story, for the first time I understood something about Finndo's blood, and that was that Amberite's very rarely fathered children. It wasn't my fault. There wasn't anything wrong with me. It was just a consequence of my appropriated bloodline. A more reasonable person would probably have understood it was never my fault and things just happened, but I wasn't that person. And it presented me with options. No more was I forever banned from Isenmist's most important institution. Sure, it would probably be difficult, but there was all shadow before me. I had to be able to invoke a favor on Random or Martin or one of his kin if necessary. Somewhere in shadow there was a solution. In the meantime I could relax. 

Oh my, I could relax. It had been fifty odd years made longer because I'd spent that time alone, usually fighting for my life. I sighed and stroked Lolimar's side. She was delightful.

Oh hell, I had just slept with Derwent's wife. Queen. Fiance. Lady. Whatever. This was the woman who had broken Root's heart. I'd proposed to her grandmother. Oh, hell and complexity.

Lolimar moved and adjusted herself so she was laying on top of me, chin on my chest, looking up at my face. She wasn't quite stable, so I put my hands on her hips for balance, and when I winced, realizing the fullness of current events, she put her head down to start kissing my breast. She fit perfectly into my arms.

I really should have paid more attention to all of the reasons I shouldn't have done what we did next.

 

When we woke up after that, we sat in bed and regarded each other, a warm distance between us. 

"Did you come back for the pattern?" she asked.

I was quiet for a bit. Her question was off. "Why would you ask that?"

"Because you didn't come back for me," she put it to me bluntly. "I didn't enter your mind. So you did it for the pattern or to kill Alamach. Was it the pattern?"

She'd stopped me. What exactly was I going to do about Derwent? "I'm not necessarily going to kill anyone."

She waited with patience that demanded an answer. Root had always hated my incomplete answers. That thought made me uncomfortable. 

"The pattern is part of it."

"Now that you're here, and I'm here, what will you do?"

She certainly was at that. We were still in her bed and stank of sex. She was beautiful. Her hair was short for Isenmist, mid-back instead of waist or lower. It didn't have fake waves, but lay flat, heavy with sweat. Her tanned skin was flushed. She was curvier than the girls I'd grown up with, long ago, and less fit than the beauties that had come to McKain's gym. Yet her eyes were sharper, and her face more intent. She was focused. I had a subdued longing for her, even when she was still arms reach away, and yet she was waiting for an answer. I didn't feel like refusing. Was I going to kill Derwent? Did I break into his house to bed his wife and kill him?

"I'm not going to kill Derwent," I said, and it felt truthful. "I am here for the pattern." Each sentence blocked me from an old lethality. "I'm going to go walk the pattern. Now." Committing to that locked me on my course and bought time.

"Now?" she asked.

"Now," I affirmed. I had to get away from this woman and think things over.

"I'll command the bees. They will not interfere," she promised.

"Thank you."

I got dressed while she watched, wrapped in soft blankets. When I was done she rose, bundled, and opened one of the shutters. A worker entered and alighted on her hand. The bee stretched from her fingers to palm, and explored her scents. She whispered into its ear, and it flew off.

"You're wondering if it's a trap," she told me without looking.

"Yes," I agreed, thinking of Random's family in Amber. To them everything was a trap, and it was so nonsensical from the outside.

"How can I convince you it's not?" she asked.

That was an excellent question, I thought, and unwillingly gave the Amberites a sliver more credit. There were angles on every play, and pragmatically, the only certainty would be eliminating her, Derwent, the bees, probably all of the omote, and perhaps the human race. That was the only way to be sure. 

That just wasn't going to happen. I didn't even have the gut unpleasantness of considering murdering Derwent, because that had been possible. This wasn't. Meaning there was no way to be certain, and therefore I was set to weigh probabilities.

I didn't think Lolimar was going to kill me. Trapping or inconveniencing me wasn't that effective, and she'd had opportunities to off me. Of course the great hive was the closest she could get to certainty, and she'd be the safest distance away, so maybe-

No, Roland, I chided myself. You can't keep doing this. Everyone is not trying to kill you. That's paranoid delusion, not caution.

"No, I don't think you're going to betray me," I said, thinking 'again.' Was this to be my first exercise in trust? That was a terrible idea. That was a worse idea than going alone into the hive.

"Would you like me to join you?" she asked.

"No. It's not necessary. Alamach is not here?"

"No. He's gone right now."

I nodded. That was another thing I needed to think about. What was I going to do? Lolimar waited and underneath her blankets she was naked. My longing surged. I had to clear my head.

"I will return," I said and climbed out the window. 

It was only ten feet above the mountainside, and it avoided a long walk through Derwent's silent halls. The hive was closer to her suites than the main gate. Most importantly, the air was cold and clear, the sky was unblocked by transparent beams, and I wasn't wrapped in problems. Leaving Alamach's manse my head cleared, and I did some thinking.

 

After that we were together every moment for days, but we never spoke. We talked all the time. We talked about food, ourselves, and the weather. I told her of Arryn and the tobacco farms before it. She told me of her father's house, still echoing with Merilar's presence that guided her son's rule and Lolimar's upbringing. We talked of governance in Vo Done, and the walls of Isenmist. We finished conversations from the first time I met her, discussing field rotations and crops. But we never talked of Alamach.

We never talked of what would happen when he returned. We never spoke to returning to Vo Done. Root and Yve never came up. She didn't ask where I had gone or what I had done, and I never asked what Derwent had promised her. I didn't learn what her official status with him was. The omote generally avoided the house unless summoned, and we remained in seclusion with each other. 

I did learn I hadn't been gone very long: less than three months. Fiona and Bleys had certainly deceived me on that. It was a foolishly simple mistake to make.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And if there's one thing we know about Fiona and Bleys, it's that they're prone to obvious mistakes.


	9. Chapter 9

9

The question of the hour was was I going to put Lolimar on the throne? She was using me, but I couldn't get too mad about it. She'd been very honest about that. It was her throne, and I'd sworn oaths to support her. Even holding those oaths abrogated, she was still the rightful claimant. Pisis's butt kept it warm right now, but he needed a good terminal sanctioning. 

So we come to Lolimar and deep ambivalence. The crude fact of the matter was these people looked on things totally different that I'd been raised to. Emotion was an afterthought to functional unions. It would be hard to overstate how near annihilation less than a century ago had influenced them. The race needed people because otherwise there would be no humans. Kings and queens needed heirs. My earlier marriage had been annulled in a sort of no-fault mulligan because I'd fathered no children. That Random explained. In light of that, Lolimar whatevering with me purely to get her throne back wasn't the hang-up to these people it was presenting me. If feelings fell out later, so much the better. But they weren't primary.

On the other hand I wasn't going to kill Derwent. That just wasn't going to happen. It would have been the smart move, but I had to live with myself. I had to see my face in the mirror.

"It isn't my face," I argued aloud to a rock I was sitting on. 

"No," I retorted. "You're not going to kill Lolimar, and now that you're- You're not going to be the guy that breaks into Derwent's house, takes his woman, and then offs him. They got circles of hell for people like that."

Man, I felt twisted about that. I had to do something. Every moment in his clear roofed manse was agony. Ever remembered something you'd done years ago and agonized over it? I was living that moment. This was some exquisite bastardry right here. 

Thinking of the cuckold in question, where exactly was he? Shouldn't he be around?

And yet there was no reason for him to be. He could be anywhere, doing anything. It was nothing to Bleys to reward him with infinite shadow or a knife. I felt a surge of hope at that and stamped it down hard. I wasn't that guy. But infinite shadow would be equally plausible. There was probably a shadow where Derwent was worshiped as a god. In infinity there might have to be. A shadow of infinite wealth, power, women, anything. 

I could probably ask her, but she'd probably just lie. Even if she didn't, I couldn't trust her about that. I felt sick and diverted my thoughts.

So what to do? Trump Random. Pick a fight with the powers that be. No percentage in that. What could I possibly gain?

Put Lolimar on the throne of Isenmist. That would require a coup and a confrontation with Pisis. Expecting to feel guilty I examined my headspace and found nothing. 

Feck off and explore the world. Clearly the smart play and-

And I'd been doing that for fifty years. Fifty years of solitude and adventure, kicking ass, and God, I was so damn lonely. It was the smart play. It really was. I'd waited fifty years, and I could wait fifty more. Then I'd be older, even more powerful, wiser- Fifty years. Another fifty years. 

I put my hands together over my face and pulled down, stretching the skin. My eyelids pulled back and my jowls lengthened. My face hurt.

I couldn't take another fifty years. Let's be honest, self, you fell into Lolimar's arms because you couldn't take the fifty years you had just done, much less another fifty to come. Maybe the true Amberites had the will. I was just a shadow of them, and I didn't want to be alone any more. 

I didn't have to play games with her. She knew. Pisis got well deserved vengeance, my cult takes the stamping long overdue, and justice is served. Knight takes bishop, gets promoted to king, takes Queen, and sits with the other pawns of the greater players. 

I'd need help. I probably couldn't fight an entire country myself. Where could I get an army, even a small one?

Someone tried to trump me. I resisted. However after contact had broken, I withdrew Random's card and focused on it as he had taught me. Contact came quickly.

"Did you just seek me?" I asked.

"No, but Fiona did on my request. A nasty rumor is floating around Amber about you," he replied. The card behind him showed his private office, full of objects d'art of incalculable worth and broken drumsticks.

"It's true. I'm terrible with women."

Random squinted at me.

On consideration he'd probably interpret that in light of his sister. That was- wow. Interesting word choice, Roland. 

"Sorry. What rumors?"

"One rumor. You broke into Bleys' quarters and stole his blood."

"I also drugged him."

Random blinked. 

"Yes. It happened. I'm not entirely happy with your brother, so when I saw a chance, I took it. I haven't confirmed anything yet, but I'm trying to figure out what's going on. Your kin are no help because they think everything begins and ends with Amber. Maybe it does, but without the power to walk through shadow, that isn't terribly productive. So in my blunt way, I'm figuring things out myself. Your son had nothing to do with it."

"Oh, he mentioned that. He said he made sure not to be around you in the hospital for that exact reason."

"Sneaky little shit," I muttered. 

Their family half-smile made an appearance on Random's face. "You do realize Bleys may kill you for this? Or appeal to Benedict? Those two haven't gotten along well recently, but nothing unites family like a common enemy."

"Bah. The hell with them." I remembered Benedict at breakfast and the terror of him. "Bleys I can handle."

"He's claiming he went easy on you in your first fight."

"Random, no one gets a head stomping intentionally."

"Well, he may have underestimated you as well. He won't a second time."

"If the first time we fought ended with him on the ground while I jumped on his head, and he wants another fight, he's underestimating me." I snorted.

Random started laughing. He fought it and briefly looked concerned, but eventually his body shaking couldn't be anything else. Stress giggles slipped out of him in a most undignified manner. He put his hand to his face and broke contact.

What had I been about to do? Oh, yes. Something stupid. I went inside and found Lolimar.

"Tell me of Isenmist," I said. "And how it can be taken."

She took measure of me with her eyes. "You were there the last time I was. I don't know anything you don't. May I ask why you're asking now?"

I met her gaze, and there was little trust between us. But trust wasn't necessary.

"I've decided to put you on the throne. Pisis is holding it now, but I'll fix that. That issue of the cult needs to be resolved. But once I've done that the throne will be open. I could take it-" I hemmed for a while. "But that would be a distraction. I've got something to take care of, and some people might come looking for me. I need to stay focused. I was initially intending to put you on the throne again anyway, but various things happened. When you-"

I stopped before my rant started. It was just old anger. "I'm going to put all that behind me. We start anew, and now that you understand matters, you have a chance to earn my trust. This is it. You keep faith with me, we both get what we want, and between us, we keep on as we have been."

"As we have been?" she asked, pushing for detail.

I put my hands on her skirts, worked them through the folds to her soft skin, and she was hot to touch. "Yes."

I wouldn't have trusted her if she gasped yes like an excited shepherdess. This woman was given to deep thought. But she touched my arms like a milk maid and studied my face. There was a hot woman under there that wanted me, and a cold queen that wanted a throne. 

"I do," she said quietly. 

I pulled her close, and she yielded, fitting between my arms. Her lips were hot and sweet. But I separated and put her in her seat, for the discussion we had to have didn't need passion. It needed tactics. "So how can Isenmist be taken?"

"Do you have an army?"

"No."

"Roland, you do know violence isn't always the answer?"

"It is to this question!"

She sighed. "Let me offer you a better one."

I wasn't sure what to make of that, and less when she robed herself in a wool cloak and high boots. Then we walked north across the wildflowers.

We went up the northern mountains, parent range of Alamach's lair. They were named the Jargen (in English, loosely, "The Broken Range") by the omote for the basins of many volcanoes. These held their cups upwards and white cloaks low. To me they looked like headless horsemen wearing high collars. The nearest of which was a short walk along an easy road, and even leaving late, we got there in plenty of time to return before dark.

"This is where Derwent made contact with Bleys when," She paused. "-he did."

I nodded. My earlier thoughts fell away. "Why are you showing me this now?"

"Do you see that?" she asked, pointing at a small spring in the crust of the mountain. 

Instead of answering, I waited.

"That's the Fountain of Youth. That's what Bleys paid him for you."

"And why did you wait to tell me this until now?" I asked.

"You told me to earn your trust. There. That's the most valuable thing I know, and it's the way to take Isenmist without an army."

"How so?"

"We go in, you depose Pisis, and we tell the people that when they swear fealty we make them immortal!"

"That--is an excellent plan."

"Roland," Lolimar said carefully. "You said a few things. You said this was a time to build trust, and I want you to trust me. But you also said that I could do so now that I understand you. I think I do, and I want you to understand me.

" I don't know how you think women should be. You might want a weak, flighty girl you can protect. I'm not that woman, and if that's what you're looking for, I'm not going to be her. When we go back to my city and take my crown and chair, understand that we are taking my crown and my chair. I will rule in Vo Done. You're talking about becoming my King, and there's room on the dias for two. But you'll share my dias, not take it." She bristled in her pride.

"I don't want your crown or your chair. I want you."

"Oh. Well, me you can have," she said, deflating.

So I took her. Then I drank from the Fountain of Youth, and we set out to conquer her kingdom. It was a good day.


	10. Chapter 10

10

We arrived outside the gates of Vo Done at dawn, the sun cresting at our backs. 

"So what's your plan?" I asked.

Lolimar looked down at her city's spires. Parts of it were burned and black, wide squares of ruin. There were guards at the gate and more on the wall. 

"Before we confront Pisis, the people need to know you're back, and they need to know I'm with you," she said.

"All right. How do we do that?"

"Deal with the guards in your usual way. You're famous for that."

"For all the grief I get about my rut, you like encouraging me in it," I observed to her with a frown.

"We do want to let the people know who you are, and it is your most famous attribute," she replied. She hunched her shoulders against me. "But try not to scare them. They won't side with us if they think the fountain is poison or you're out for revenge."

I was out for revenge on Pisis but decided not to mention that. There was no point in asking her for a plan and then picking it apart. "All right. Stay out of bow range, but close enough to be visible."

"How far is bow range?"

That bewildered me. I pointed at an appropriate rock. "Walk with me to there, and then I'll go alone."

That little remark of hers affected me deeply, but I struggled to understand why. It was a reasonable question. The guards saw me and sensed something was afoot, but other than visibly readying themselves, didn't stop my advance. They didn't recognize me.

The first drew a short, heavy bladed broadsword and held it up to arrest me. "Halt!"

The hit took him out of his boots and left the broadsword tumbling in midair. His compatriot squawked and got the wind knocked out of him. Unfortunately my arm got stuck in his shield, and I ruined my bold moment by having to pry it off with a foot. The other guards started yelling on the wall. I ducked past the dropping gate, bounced up the stairway behind, and smacked everyone around. 

"Is it safe?" Lolimar called.

"Yes, but hold on. Someone axed the winch."

She approached anyway and the rising door illuminated her from ankle to head slowly, framed in the dawn sun. She came into the city bringing light. After jimmying the gate I hopped down to join her. We advanced directly to the palace, preceded by rumors. The carriers ran past and around, and on side streets saw boys dashing and yelling. By the time we got to her halls, people were hanging out of windows to watch. Lolimar did not address them.

The palace gates were closed, unusual for so late in the morning. She waved me at them. "Open it."

"With the goat?"

"What?"

"Nothing." I kicked the gate down, and my cult was beyond.

Many things were bothering me, niggling at my mind. The cult demanded my attention, but I begrudged them the beating they were about to receive. I'd forget all the things I was trying to remember if I got in a fight. "Where is Motin?"

"He's sick to death," someone answered. "You cursed him."

"Is that what he told you? No, he cursed himself. I'm here to offer him a cure. If he lives, bring him to me."

"Roland," sighed a deep and guttural voice full of layers. Feet shuffled, and the Orthodoxy of Angel Roland moved aside. 

"Hello, Huggard." I winced, my chest aching. Something pressed my throat.

Many months ago I'd broken Huggard's hip when he had broken into my tower. He'd taken poison thereafter, searching for power. Now he advanced on me. Coarse fur hung from his waist and arms, bulging out holes in his tunic. Someone had flattened out a metal plate and wrapped it around his chest. His legs had extra knees, but his face was unmistakable. Only the eyes were different, turned phosphorescent green. They glittered in the palace shadows like fireflies.

"I have waited for you," he said, sidling forwards. The extra joints in his legs allowed him to walk without moving his upper body. It was like he rode a platform.

I knew. I railed against it, but I knew. "We have something now. It might be a cure. We have a hope," I began, and he cut me off.

"I have hope. You promised me hope once, but now I have it. Pisis gave me hope."

"No, I never said that. I told you the poison wasn't hope, but I thought it was too late. Huggard, there's a chance-"

"Not for you."

It hurt. It was stupid, and I should have shrugged it off. None of this was my fault.

"Step aside, please," I asked my cult. "Your numbers will not help him."

Somehow they did, and Lolimar backed up as well. She retreated through the open gate, saying, "Be care-" when Huggard lunged.

I sidestepped and broke his throat. The snaps on the breastplate tore, and the hard edge cut upwards, stopping around his ears. He died before he hit the ground.

"Dumb bastard," I whispered in a language no one on this world knew. I checked, but the brain was pulverized. "Udan Sun-Maker, I send you a brave son. Seat him on the stars at your right hand."

Members of the Orthodoxy whispered in the shadows, and I lead the queen in. "To Pisis," I ordered, and they showed us the way. Lolimar walked tall and strong. Some of the halls had been repaired of the fires, but the roof of the great hall was gone. Fingers of blackened wood reached from the walls.

Before reinforced doors a messenger appeared. "Pisis thanks you for bringing the visitors to him, and now they must advance alone."

The crowd whispered, watching us leave. Even the messenger waited outside. Once we were through they clustered around the doorway, and it pleased me to shut them out. Lolimar began to advance, but I held her shoulder back.

We were in the short corridor, almost a foyer, between one of the common areas and large west antichamber. When last we were here, only months ago, Lolimar had explained she was beginning to replace the wooden walls with stone, and west of us they had done several rooms. This was the last wooden place. The ceiling was thatch over wicker, and Lolimar wouldn't be hurt if I threw her through. Only scrapes and nicks. Her travelling dress had a heavy hood, so she'd need to go through backwards.

"Tell me," I said, when she looked over to see why we'd stopped. "We know this is a trap. But Pisis' people all know it's a trap too. If we go in and his trap succeeds, he won't be able to pretend we merely wandered off. But he told them to wait outside. Why would he do that?"

"Perhaps he wants to speak with us privately," she replied.

I was amazed she could say that with a straight face. "Are you honestly telling me you don't think we're walking into a trap?"

If she said 'yes' she was in league with Pisis.

"I don't agree that a trap is the only thing Pisis has prepared," she said. "You're fixating on it because if so, it will be violent, and that's what may get us killed. But he persuaded the fanatics of the Orthodoxy to side with him against you, so he's clever. Clever people won't just have one plan."

"But you do think there's a trap."

"Among other things."

"Let's talk about the trap."

She was too dignified to sigh. "If there's a trap, you just murder everything. Is that not understood? I thought we had agreed on this. Now let's talk about what if it isn't a trap, and omnicide isn't an appropriate response."

"You don't normally talk like that," I said.

She put one vexed hand on my shoulder and waited. "Roland, please."

Oh, she was trying to reach me. That was sweet. She was willing to talk omnicide for me. 

I couldn't complain much. The trap plan was what I intended to do anyway, so I surrendered the conversational point. "All right. If he's willing to talk, what do we do?"

She smiled faintly, then frowned, composing her words. They came out like blocks of partially built buildings, towering but incomplete. Their own size and completeness made her thoughts difficult to put together. 

"He won't cede my crown easily. He's come a long way, and he'll think he earned it. Usurper that he is, he's come too far to go back. But he's scared. He ran from you in the Wicker Cathedral, and then he had his people with him, when you weren't well known. His first instinct is to run. The coup-" She looked away, thinking. Her face smoothed and went blank as her eyes sought out trivial details in the walls and floor. She must have been down this road in her head before, but moments away from confrontation, she was attacking it again. "His coup must have been desperation. What he worked for was collapsing. He'd tried to run once, and you'd caught him. So the cornered rat bit. So now he must be able to escape, lest he bite again."

"Except if he escapes, we'll have to do this all over again," I argued. 

"But we don't have many choices," she said.

Well, there was one. There was the obvious, permanent solution to the Pisis dilemma. The queen was looking at me, face gentle but eyes hard. 

We found Pisis holding court in Lolimar's antechamber.

I did not remember Pisis much from before. He had been the enemy, semi-human, and merely a force of antagonism instead of a person. His face might always have been lined, but his baggy eyes said he slept little. They were bloodshot. He spent too much time indoors under torches. The hall smelled of soot. Earth had electric lights like Arryn, and Amber's halls were designed to ventilate and refresh with the lore of shadows. Now back in dark Isenmist, I remembered how lucky they were, as I had been. I looked at Pisis again. He was thin and old, with the health of hard living and good food. He sat on his throne, fingers interlaced before his mouth, and a wicker crown on his head. There was a bastard sword by his side, but his fingers were weak and spidery. The corners of the hall were dark, so I took a torch from the wall.

"Roland of White Wall Vale," he said. "Lolimar. I-"

The torch hit Pisis in the chest. The throne shattered, his ribs broke, and he shot backwards, stopping pinned to the wall. The cheery fire on the end of the torch never went out.

Lolimar, one hand up and mouth open, stopped talking. Her authority had dribbled away into a squeak, as she turned to look at me.

I shrugged. "Do you know that's the first person I've ever murdered? I've killed a few in fights, and of course yrch. But that was the first person I've ever deliberately murdered. Best to get it over fast. A pool of cold water. Sudden shock." I was gasping, so I stopped. Inhale through the nose, exhale through the mouth, keeping teeth together, bite the mouthguard if you have to, but don't stop breathing. Eyes right, left, right, left, until the field expands from a tunnel to the room, and the world opens up.

Lolimar had taken my hand, which surprised me. I thought my reflexes would have killed her. But they hadn't. She was inside my guard and waiting, and I looked away because she was the epicenter of all of this. I looked around the room to keep the world wide. In darkness the stone halls tried to fade away as tunnelling crept in. Inhale through the nose. Don't lock the jaw. Just because you can bite the mouthguard doesn't mean you should. Guapa was giving me a private lesson because I breathed peculiarly wrong, and Tyde hadn't caught it. Tyde was watching. Huge black guy, skin like ebony, who was always so respectful. Everyone was 'sir' to Tyde. It made you want to be a better person, to be the person Tyde treated you as. Guapa was talking about my breathing because it wasn't always wrong like leading with the chin, but it lead to bad habits he wanted to break before they set. Lolimar reached out of the blackness and grabbed my face. The world was a tiny circle around the torch. Her hand came from shadow. She pulled me down to look at her, which was good, because tunnel vision kills.

"Roland?" she said again.

"Yes?" I asked. Perfectly, artfully, exquisitely crafted word. Just enough politeness to show interest, only the faintest trace of care, and subtle hints of affection for her. It was a masterful word.

"Are you with me, Roland?"

"Of course." Also perfect. 20 pts, two rounds.

"Pisis is dead. He won't come back."

"I hope not. That is why I killed him."

Brilliant retort. Not actually funny, but wry. Shows levity. Nothing to be taken too seriously. Roland, angel, Knight, second hand prince of Amber, terror and warrior does not take a single killing seriously. Roland is flippant. Glance negligently at the torch, but keep the eyes moving. Tunnel vision kills.

"I know, and we talked about that. Now we need to talk to the people, and bring them to us."

Back to the torch. Flickering shadows. Twitching. Involuntary muscle contractions. Pulsing. Involuntary- no. No.

"Why is he moving?" I interrupted Lolimar and shoved an arm past her to point at Pisis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took three or four rewrites. The big difference between Roland and the Amberites is age/experience. They've done all this. They've been through their first times on everything, and it shows in the negligence they had for mundane concerns. Roland hasn't, and in fact, given the level of focus, he's somewhat naive. He's punching well above his weight class because he doesn't know a lot of normal things, and a few abnormal, and the gross disparity there keeps tripping him up. It's also one of the things that drives him to put everything in terms of fighting. He's Amber-class at that, at least if Sandy is Finndo. Unconsciously he sets other interactions in fighting terms because he's trying to catch the experience and confidence he has with his hands and use it for things like negotiation. 
> 
> I watched WWZ and ignoring the rest of the movie, one aspect of it that really rubbed me the wrong way was Brad Pitt's character discounting the spec ops guys as being hammers who see every problem as a nail. That completely dehumanized them and showed an ugly arrogance within the character. It was one of many problems of that movie. On the other hand people do act like that. While within the time budget of the movie, they may not have been able to go into the side cast, I still don't like the way they wrote all those stories off. 
> 
> Roland is an incident of sonder in his own life. He's what hammers think of.


	11. Chapter 11

11 

The corpse writhed. Its legs pulsed and jiggled, sometimes bulging, and sometimes swelling to immense size before redistributing. I thought I was hallucinating.

"Do you see that?" I asked Lolimar.

"What is it?"

"But you see that, right?"

"Pisis' body is moving," she agreed, and the two of us froze, watching. The head fell forward, into the flames, and went up at once. It blistered into a halo of fire, stinking as burning hair did, and began to weep a black, furry darkness. I couldn't look away.

I should have, because the monster descending from the ceiling got within arm's reach of my head, spread wide pincers, and seized me in wet, venomous fangs. 

I reacted with some alarm. 

They tell me I shouted windows from their frames. When I looked up and saw glistening tongues descending around my head, my scalp beyond the horned teeth, I did what any reasonable person would and completely lost my shit. That was the moment when fear of death was nothing and fear of fear was all. I forgot everything, Lolimar, the throne, Pisis seething corpse, and leaped. I missed the doorway and hit a buttress, smashing through it in a shower of stone. 

Pisis was almost liquid, terrible and black, a fluid made of many moving parts. He burned from the top down. Rock tumbled from the ceiling, and I lay on my back. The ceiling was dense with monsters. It was a spider's nest of many-legged shoggoths, squirming about as the roof began to fall.

Lolimar was up. "To your feet and run!" she cried, taking her own advice, and finding the door blocked from the outside. 

I looked from roof to ceiling, and understood. Pisis was a body of spiders, a human skin of silk drawn across a living swarm. Now they scuttled across the floor. Doors of steel and stone had been built to keep us in. The walls were too thick, and there was no fighting these many enemies. 

"What are you going to do?" she asked, seeking any advantage on the doorframe.

"Die probably," I admitted. The door shook with my shoulder, but the hinges were cleverly tucked within the stone. There was no access point. 

"Can't you fight?"

"Against all this? I need something! I need an angle, a weapon, room to maneuver."

"What? This is your element!"

"Yeah, well, I got beat," I said, and hit the door again. It shuddered but would stand long after we did. The first of the shoggoth's pounced. It jumped like a spider, too fast to see, but I took Lolimar and dodged. Now I was firing on all cylinders, looking everywhere, and if I couldn't dodge the leap, I could dodge the crouch. Our end would not be easy. I'd underestimated them badly, like- Oh hell, we could try that. I stuck my fingers in Lolimar's ears and spoke my curse. 

More than half the ceiling collapsed as reinforced boulders rained down on venomous heads. Steel shafts between the stone cracked in splinters. The sky rained spiders. I grabbed the queen up under my arms and ran, taking a first step on insects and another on vermin, and then I was airborne, dashing upwards to the sky.

"Roland!" screamed the monsters below, many mouths, many throats, many tones, and all one voice. He called to me as I landed on the ceiling, balancing on the beams under the thatch.

"They talk?" Lolimar gasped.

"And they're familiar." I grasped at straws.

"Because you know that voice," she said, looking up at me. "He is one you brought with you. It is Dimine."

I put her down and hunched over, clawing my eyes. My nails dragged down to my lips that had spoken the curse, merely because I was stressed and in a bit of danger. Lolimar tried to touch me, but I shook her off.

"He comes," she said.

It was true. There were so many of them. Legs and hairy bodies pushed through the roof hole, and the edges began to turn dark with spiders. The little ones came first, weaving silk to hold the ceiling up, and the great shoggoths bobbed on many legs. 

"I don't think I'm willing to fight this," I said, sitting on my heels. "Not another one. Not so soon."

"But you must. Roland, our enemies made a crucial mistake. They sent Huggard against you in public, and everyone saw how much you didn't want to fight him. You tried to reason with him, and you tried to talk him out of it. It wasn't your fault. But Huggard attacked, and you had to fight him. It wasn't your fault. Then, Pisis ordered you in alone, and you were right, it was a trap. But it was supposed to be a trap no one saw, which you were right about too. And that's where he messed up. Now everyone's going to see. Everyone will see you fighting monsters, and they know Pisis is the monster. You have to, Roland."

I looked at the swarm, creeping from the hive under the midmorning sun, and looked around. The royal palace of Vo Done had never been huge, for all it's labyrinthine complexity. We were on a sloped roof near the edge, and people were watching from the streets. They looked around corners, and climbed onto houses. Even Pisis guards were looking, and I could see doubt and confusion in them.

"But someone turned him into this, and there might be a way to turn him back," I argued, and she cut me off.

"Roland, Pisis was the Chalcedony Moor of your cult. Dimine was a fanatic in your cult. When you fled the Vale of Merilar and lived in the White Wall Vale, everyone thought you were rebuking not only my grandmother, but all her line. I grew up thinking we'd failed you. It is up to you to put this right, Roland."

"I never meant that."

"What you mean isn't as important as what you do." She towered over me, and the sun behind her wrapped her in light. 

Already the Dimine swarm was closer, whispering my name from a thousand throats. My stomach rebelled and hurt as my hands shook. It was bad and yet- I breathed, slowly, tasting the air. It wasn't that bad. It was a distraction. I was trained to deal with distractions.

I lifted Lolimar and carried her over the edge, centering myself in the broad square before the palace. If Dimine came, it would be his own choice, and he did, scuttling over the walls. The stain of him darkened the palace, and the lesser spiders wove dun silk.

"Give me your belt," I said to someone random. They had a fat leather one, and I took the buckle in my fist, wrapping my forearm to cover the veins. Brushing my hair back I realized my head was a bloody mess. That's right; it had bitten me on the head. I'd lost some skin yanking my skull out. Hopefully it would grow back. I moved away from the queen, finding room to move, and noticed the two guards from the gate. They were in the crowd.

"Give me a sword, one of you not with that," I said, pointing to the horror that came. Several offered me one, but it was the guard's I took. No armor, no helmet, just a belt around my off hand, and a broadsword. It only had one edge and a blunt tip.

My mind grew distant and abstracted while my breathing slowed under control. It was best to approach this like a point match. There were more than a dozen of the great hairy spiders, so no point in going all-in to finish any one. The small horde was beyond number. They might web this whole place, so watching my field was critical. They might make a break for the crowd. I wasn't sure what I'd do then. Make sure you don't try to shoot or close. Keep it standing. My pulse was so slow I might be dead.

His first lunge, I duck, dodge, stab overhead, the body comes apart, move forward, too many of them, dive, clear space, circle out, and I had my first point on the board. 

"Roland," Dimine accused.

He rushed, all numbers and no finesse. How did he speak? Did spiders have vocal chords? It was the least of my worries. How do you prevent an opponent from getting in your head?

You don't let him, Graupa said. You just don't let him. 

Yes, but how? 

You just don't let him. If you can think about his words, you can think about your breathing. Look around.

Look around. Tunnel vision kills. Dimine approached, and I put points on the board.

I killed him in a thousand cuts. He never ran away, never retreated, never changed his strategy. He lunged in packs, swarming, and once silk covered the courtyard, he moved deadly fast. Nothing covers ground like that. Legs like tree trunks flew. Sometimes a stray thorax would crash into the crowd. They danced out of the way, but that was their problem. We took it up a wall, and once the screaming had stopped, through the roof inside. The spiders were all over me, but that was the plan. Taking the thatch roof with me left straw everywhere, and in these days, we lit our homes with fire. 

"Roland!" Dimine pleaded, and fire was all around us. Then it was just popping and hissing in the flames, and I walked out the front door.

"Sorry about your house," I told a couple standing nearby, several terrified children watching in horror. "The queen will take care of it."

Vo Done burned down, taking Merilar with it. Flames jumped to the palace, and Pisis' schemes went up in flames. By afternoon the flames were hot enough to crack stonework, and the inferno splintered and cracked. It roared and fed on history. Then it was gone, city annihilated, not scarred like before. The people were not surprised, and no more lives were lost. But the city was gone.

"Where's Motin?" I asked someone.

"With the people from the palace," the cobbler said. 

I found him wrapped in blankets. His head was taut skin over bone, covered in cold sweat, and he wasn't coughing. His breathing was wet and weak. Sightlessly he turned his head and made noises in his mouth. They told me his vocal chords didn't work.

"I have your hand now, Motin," I said. "Squeeze once for yes, and twice for no. There is a place where you might be saved. It is far from here, and I promise nothing. Do you want to go?"

We had a crowd like the very first days after Glen Herrin Falls. Then they followed me. Now they watched. Lolimar was watching too. Motin's hand was tiny, little sticks of fingers wrapped in twine. I held it under the blankets. 

He squeezed twice.

I looked up at the crowd. I looked at Lolimar. She had Merilar about her, but it wasn't overwhelming. Someone between them had had darker eyes and a narrower nose. She was stronger and subtler than Merilar. Merilar had been a war queen. Lolimar would make nation.

"He squeezed once," I said. "I'm taking him with me. Will you rule with my blessing?" 

"Will you return?" she asked.

"Who can say? In you I put my full faith and allegiance."

Then I took out Random's trump and called. It was terribly difficult to make contact, and the sense of presence was hemmed by violent static. There was a lightning storm in the periphery of my vision, and Random was eclipsed by fog. 

"I have a sick man. He will die without help. Will you bring me through?" I asked.

"Come," replied Random, and his voice was full of bees. The king reached out his hand and I took it. That first step's a doozy, and I landed on marble floors with Motin in my arms.

Random wasn't Random. Random was Finndo, once called Sandy, and I landed in his lair.


	12. Chapter 12

12

Have you heard of the phenomenon wherein time slows down in a moment of crisis? It didn't happen to me. Do you know why it didn't happen to me? Because I was hitting Sandy.

Motin got dropped. Sorry Motin. Motin actually posed a problem because he didn't fall fast enough, and I had to climb over his sick, tumbling body to get to Sandy. I jumped on a man's sick bed. I really feel bad about that. 

By the time Motin hit the ground I had finished leaping off his face and gotten my mitts Finndo. There was an eternity of punching wherein Finndo was not allowed to fall or recoil, until finally I landed such a shot that the impact sent me skidding. My feet broke the friction limit, and I slid backwards with my fist extended while Sandy flew a dozen meters through the air. He hit a wall in thunder and broke. Pieces of him went everywhere.

Then time slowed down, and I appreciated what had happened. I didn't feel sorry for Motin yet. Well, sort of. I think we can agree that at some level, he did deserve it. I'm not saying he deserved everything, or even he deserved it enough that I should have done it, but maybe this whole matter was just a little bit his fault too. More importantly I had punched Sandy into billions of little pieces that were still dribbling around the room.

That room was an iron cathedral with four opposing floors. Before and behind to either side were rising planes of flagstones, forming a central triangle on the floor I was using. Soaring buttresses rose from the corners, but also descended from each false ceiling. From them hung unburning lanterns that bore iron flames in sapphire shells, but the iron brands were white hot. The room smelled of hot metal. Sandy's bits smashed and tumbled, and those that passed central dividers fell upwards to the other floors, bouncing along what looked like the ceiling. A few hit the lamps and sent them swinging. They oscillated furiously, switching between downs to bounce on the ends of their chains. It was mesmerising.

"Can we talk for a moment?" asked a voice out of sight.

"Who's there?" I demanded.

"If I tell you, will you promise to talk first?"

"And succumb to your word-power traps? I promise nothing of the sort!" I yelled.

The nameless voice was briefly silent. "Please?" she asked.

I looked around long enough to throw the entire room some side-eye. "Maybe," I grunted.

A head poked out from around a fluted pillar, and it was Yve. She took me aback. I'd more or less given her up for dead, and she wasn't. She looked healthy if a bit nervous. 

"Show me your hands!" I yelled.

Her hands came out too. Now she was a head and arms, sticking out from behind a wall. She paused to look at them. "They're just hands," she said. 

"That's-" I did not want to explain. Instead I demanded, "Who else is back there?"

"That's what I want to talk to you about," she said. "I'm going to come out from around the corner."

She waited. I waited. She had been waiting on me, but that wasn't interesting so she stepped into vision anyway. 

Yve wore riding breeches and a jerkin over a long sleeved tunic. Her hair was intricately tied back with ribs of ribbons. She was very clean, and her boots were tucked into her pants, but somehow the cuffs were then tucked into her boots. I eyed her suspiciously.

"So, hello. How are you?" she asked and inched her hands downwards. She kept throwing me nervous glances.

I trudged deliberately over to her, close enough that her timid breath brushed my face, and glowered into her eyes. She made worried faces. I leaned in closer and sniffed.

She smelled like shampoo, weird shampoo, that stuff with vanilla pomegranate in the name. She also smelled like leather and a little bit of fear sweat. But underneath all of that, and forming the baseline of her scent, she smelled of dogs. 

I moved back to a reasonable distance. "All right, what do you want? I'm glad you're not dead. You can put your hands down. It's good to see you."

"Thank you. It's good to see you too. Is your friend well?"

"Oh, hell." On closer inspection, Motin wasn't any closer to being dead, but that wasn't far. "Motin's not well at all. He's- Who is Motin?" I asked.

"Friend of yours. Not really a friend. You found him in the tunnels under that house. You never told me that story, not in detail. Same place you met Root. I was outside with my dogs," she said quickly.

"Oh, relax. I'm not going to hit you. I don't know why you'd think that," I said. 

She glanced at the pieces of Sandy.

"Sandy had that coming. And also, who exactly was that? Or what? Because I've hit Sandy before, and he didn't shatter."

"Yes, and I've got someone here to explain that. He's going to come out. Please don't punch him," she replied.

"I'm not going to, oh, just get out here. You can all come out," I grumbled, annoyed at everyone.

Vincent emerged. He immediately showed me his hands and did so familiar with the gesture. He was wearing a twill suit, navy, with deep leather shoes and belt. He had a green tie in an off center knot. There were various cuff-links, pocket squares, and things. He opened his jacket to show he wasn't carrying a weapon and turned in place. 

"Now, you need to be really careful," I said.

"I understand. I'd like to talk."

"All right, talk."

"Specifically, I'd like to exchange some information. Now, I don't know what-"

"Oh God, I don't care!" I yelled. "We are not playing Amber games! I hate Amber games. Fine! You're super cagey. We're all very impressed. What do you want?"

"Your help with Finndo," Vincent said.

"Why?"

"Because of that!" he yelled, pointing at broken Finndo.

"That wasn't really him," I replied.

"I know. I made it! And I made it of cast iron, clay, and granite, so I know exactly how difficult punching it to pieces was!" he snorted.

I glowered at him.

"How about this? Just for listening to me, I'll cure your friend."

"You don't know what's wrong with him," I argued.

Vincent did. "He took a type suppressor. In Arryn that manipulates certain parts of the immune system that control rejection but doesn't turn the immune system off like you thought. Here it does do what you think it did, which is whisker and wit of the whole issue, but that's important later. I have a cure."

"How did you get a cure?"

"I have dark and dangerous magics."

"What kind of magics?"

"The dark and dangerous kind!" he snapped. "Now do you want me to dose him or not?"

I felt obligated to make all sorts of horrible threats, but I guessed Vincent knew those were to be understood. "Yes, go ahead."

Vincent hit Motin with a series of medicines. First he put an inhaler to Motin's nose and squirted, and while the patient was flailing weakly to resist, dropped a dissolving square into his mouth. Motin tried to spit it out but the substance turned to liquid on his tongue. By then the inhaler was working, and Motin started coughing, wet, lung clearing hands that dumping mucus and fluid onto the floor. Vincent turned the patient on his side even as he put a fluid bag on his arm. There was no needle, but it drained in moments, and the gagging man started getting his color back. No one spoke until Motin finally cleared his lungs, and then Vincent hit him with the inhaler again. That put him down. The empty fluid bag was swapped for another, which pumped at a much slower rate, and Motin started to snore.

I was impressed. "If you can do all that, I don't see why you're looking for my help."

Vincent looked suspiciously over his shoulder. "Do you think everyone's stupid? Are you one of those people who thinks they're smarter than everyone? Is that it?"

"What do you mean!?" I yelled.

"Roland, we know what you've been up to! This is Yve. Remember her? We've been watching through shadow, and she told us the rest. Let me explain your life. Finndo went walking through shadow looking for someone to teach him fighting. He found you. Ever wonder why he picked you as his first sparring partner, and then kept you around after the freeway fight? Because he found you while looking for the best person to teach him fighting. So everything he knows, you know.

"After the Fall of Arryn, you got kicked out into random shadow. Out of all of infinite shadow, you could have gone anywhere, but because Finndo wasn't even thinking about you at the time, you would have picked it. So you found this place, and like Arryn was a shadow of Finndo's desire, this was a shadow of yours. How do I know? Because you were looking for a few things. One, you wanted a shadow where you could punch someone because you were a bit irate. Two, you wanted a shadow where you mattered, because moments previously, you'd been defeated by Finndo and to him, bluntly, you don't. And finally, point three, you wanted a place where you could train for your revenge. These three points brought you here." He waved three fingers at me, thumb through middle.

"So let's analyze this, shall we? Where did you land? In the middle of a battle. What did you do? Hit people. Why did you hit them? Because it was the battle for the future of mankind, and they really needed someone to hit people. And subsequent to that, what have you done? Roamed the world, fighting people.

"Do you matter here? Roland, you had a cult. Who gets cults!? No one!" Dramatic pause. "-Expect near angelic war heroes in cultures that previously had all religion annihilated. Ever think about that? Subconsciously, you might have. Humanity was almost wiped out, Roland. All of it. What that means is the old religions are gone. People need religion. For whatever reason when old institutions fade away, they bring in new ones. Even those who claim to be atheists start worshipping at the altar of science, conspiracy, or strict nonsense. So this entire shadow was waiting, begging, for a hero that could fight, and it was built to make him matter. Where could they find such a person? Oh wait. You." Vincent pointed at me with both hands.

"And finally what have you done since you got here? You trained. You fought. You've worked with your bare hands and weapons, armored and lean. Remember how Finndo found you? He was looking for the perfect teacher? Well you, his perfect teacher, have been training yourself with a focus that we'll generously not call obsession, and to what end? Hmm. What end? Why could you possibly be doing all this? What sole, singular goal have you devoted yourself to like maniac, bending your every waking thought and physical effort towards? In the shadow of your desire, the one you found specifically to help you accomplish just such a feat?" Vincent made a great show of putting his finger to his chin in deep, inscrutable thought.

"I may have considered a rematch with Finndo," I admitted.

"Once or twice?"

"Maybe."

"Roland, let me tell you what that thing that looked like Finndo was. It was a construct, like a golem, I built to test you. The thing is, Roland, is that it had a trump of you in it, a rather brilliant one if I may, because it was built with not only all the combat lore of a dozen shadows, but it could read your mind. It knew what you were going to do before you did it and could always react perfectly. And you know what?

"You hit it before you thought about it! You engaged on something that looked like Finndo without conscious thought! Hitting Finndo is like breathing to you. It's less than that because sometimes people start thinking about their breathing and they get out of rhythm. The construct hacked your trump call to King Random, revealed himself to you under disguise in your moment of weakness, we know, we were watching, and what did you do? You climbed over a sick man to beat it to death! And, off record, that's just mean."

"I do feel bad about that," I said.

"We understand."

"So, basically, you want my help because you think I'm a single goat herder obsessed with killing Finndo, and you want my help to kill Finndo."

"We never said that," Vincent pointed out.

"Then why do you want my help?" I yelled. 

"To put you in a position wherein you and Finndo can talk your differences out like men, where we strongly encourage you to resort to dialogue and mutual trust," Vincent replied. 

"We do not encourage violence, we do not support violence, we will never ask you to engage in violence, and we will testify to that in a court of law," Yve added.

"Uh huh," I said, taking a full breath for each sound. "So you don't encourage violence, but you want to put us together to work our differences out. Where together?"

"Anywhere," Vincent replied offhandedly. "The shadow of your choosing. The place in that shadow of your choosing."

"Like a cage?" I asked.

"I have often thought a lot of politics could be resolved if two opposing parties could be locked up together until they settled their differences," Vincent agreed.

"And what's your part in all this?" I asked Yve.

"Your paramour tried to kill me while you were sleeping off your sex. We will talk about that," Yve replied. "Vincent had been watching, and he offered his aid in exchange for my assistance."

"I understand you're a bit unhappy with me right now," Vincent added. "And I recruited Yve so you'd talk."

"How do you two know-" I began.

"You slept in a room with a clear roof," Yve interrupted.

"Oh, hells. You're a pair of perverts."


	13. Chapter 13

13

"We need to stop this conversation here, because everyone's getting a little heated," Yve said. "I think we all agree, but everyone's so mad we're going to start arguing over it. That's not very useful."

"Do we agree?" Vincent demanded.

"Let me think about it," I said.

"Think about it, but also think about me giving you back your face," Vincent suggested.

"How?" I squinted at him, forcibly reminded I was squinting at him through Sandy's eyes.

"Dark and dangerous magics," Vincent replied.

"When we were talking about what to offer you, Vincent told me about how Sandy took your face," Yve said. "That's terrible. We felt offering you your face back might be important, so if you're unsure which pen for your goats, think about that."

"Isenmist and your goats," I muttered. I took some deep breaths, and thought calming thoughts. We'd been shouting, well, I'd been shouting, and my pulse was racing in post-fight adrenalin. "Are we being recorded?" I asked, thinking of peculiarities in the way they'd talked. "Or is someone listening?"

"No, but we may be required to testify regarding this incident later," Vincent replied. "In case something happens."

"Which we do not condone or suggest," Yve contributed.

"Not to put too fine a point on it, is that really sufficient? All things considered," I added.

Vincent was more prepared than I expected. He had law books on hand, big canvas bound tomes of precedent and jurisprudence with highlighted passages regarding intent. There were legal briefs devotes to culpability in case one member of a partnership engaged in illegal activity without consent of the others. There were form paragraphs to be read, official disclaimers to be stated, and disavowals to be made. He had lawyers on retainer working on this.

"It comes down like this," he said finally. "There are certain inherent risks associated with you and Finndo working out your problems in a non-violent manner-"

"In a cage." 

"Sure. Nonviolently in a cage. We assume none of those risks. However we figure you're well aware of what you're getting yourself into. What we're offering you is assistance getting to a negotiating table, wherever it may be, and once there, whatever you do is no concern of ours. I'm predominantly concerned with the Chaos side of the house, wherein precedent is clear, but Amber is your problem. Don't come looking for me later, saying I lied to you about that. I promise you nothing."

"So I'm getting hung out alone?" I confirmed.

"Yes," agreed Vincent. 

"You're making me a patsy."

"Yes," agreed Vincent.

"You're not even being subtle about it," I complained.

"Are we even having the same conversation?" demanded Vincent. "Are we not going over this right now?"

"Why would I ever say yes?" I retorted.

"Because lust for revenge has driven you mad," Vincent snapped. 

"Which is why you should talk it out and be friends," added Yve.

I rolled my eyes over to her. "And what do you think?"

"That you should see a doctor. What happened to your head?"

"Shoggoth bit it. I may be poisoned."

"Oh." She gave me big eyes and worry. "You should definitely see a doctor. We can take you to one now."

Vincent had moved past Yve to confront me directly, but now she moved past him and took my by the arm. I was glaring at Vincent, who was replying in kind, but I let her bustle me away. Along the way I made a few gut checks. Vincent and Yve weren't faking their respective roles, but they had picked them carefully. On our travels she'd always been a nice person, so filling that role here suited her, and Vincent had never impressed me as one overcome with empathy. They weren't lying. On the other hand, they were certainly playing a game, and mere disclosure of the game didn't put me better at ease.

On the third hand, I don't know, somewhere people had to have three hands, I was being offered Sandy. To discuss things with him as adults and come to a respectful agreement. In a cage. Where the little bastard couldn't get away. 

"You're clenching," Yve chastised me. She was a lot smaller than me, and she lead me through crystal halls by the forearm. I'd made fists. 

"Why are you involved in all of this? You've never struck me as the type," I asked.

"You mean beyond Lolimar trying to kill me?"

"Given the likely conclusion of our alliance, yes."

She paused. When she looked back at me she'd composed herself, and perhaps what she said was a lie. "Vincent thinks Finndo will wipe Arryn if he finds out about it."

"That has precedent," I admitted.

"I do wish we could work something out, but I don't know how. Finndo doesn't listen. He doesn't think of shadow people as real. If we could talk to him, and honestly get him to negotiate, then we could make progress. But I don't see any way to make that happen, and I think a lot about the world. I would rather work with people who are trying to do something than wait for Finndo to act."

I nodded to myself. I didn't have a response for that.

"Do you think Finndo will try to hurt you?" she asked. 

"He'll kill me if he can," I said. "He has to."

She nodded back, a mirror of my gesture with the same lack of answers. "I think he thinks about Arryn like you think he thinks about you. And I don't know what else to do."

"Do you trust Vincent?"

"I don't think he'll lie to you. He won't make any stupid or obvious plays. We spent a lot of time preparing for the meeting, and I know it might have sounded silly the way I kept insisting on things, but it isn't. It's a careful reading of the law. That's how Vincent is."

I took my hand back, and we started walking again. High lanterns cast many-colored light in the crystal hallways. Each bit of color was sharp and distinct but tiny, fast moving, and the whole vision came across as complex white light. We came to a bronze door.

"However, that's before. Vincent takes Finndo very seriously, and he won't do anything to jeopardize his aims." Yve said suddenly. "Afterwards, I would be very careful."

"What are you going to do?" I asked.

She opened the door without answering and lead me inside a brass clock.

The primary gears were the size of houses, and one massive wheel could squash a city block. Springs like trees grew and fell, heaving against the metal sky of gnashing teeth. Everything ticked and whirred, and each tooth had many smaller holes within. For a moment I was astounded at what I saw. This couldn't be in the world of Isenmist, I thought, but I did not know.

Then the gremlins emerged from the wheels and gears, out from behind their cams, and watched the two of us with brilliant brass eyes. They had hats with wind-up keys and pocketwatch pants. Clock hands went around in their eyes. Varying metallic colors gave them rosy cheeks, but they waited in the shadows, watching. Yve started clucking at them, trying to get them to come out.

"Stop scowling," she said. "You're scaring them.

"I'm not scowling."

"Fine. You're not," she replied in her 'I'm not arguing with you' voice. "Smile."

I smiled. 

They ran away, clicking and clattering behind cover.

Yve threw side-eye at me like a cobra. 

"I do have a head wound," I said. "I'm bleeding everywhere. This might not be my fault."

"Right," she said. "Do you have any metal? They like metal."

I had no money. "I've got a sword," I offered.

She took it and approached a rotary clutch. Little heads clustered between planetary gears, ticking to each other in whispers. When she first extended them the sword they drew back, but a few approached it, examining the blade. Soon others came forward as well. They took the weapon among themselves and hauled it down into the workings of the machinery. When they came back looking for more, Yve had already retreated to my side.

"Ah, that may have been poisoned," I said. "Not intentionally, but by use."

"That's not a problem. You can't poison them. They won't even rust."

"What are they?"

"Gremlins," she replied. "I've only just started coaxing them out of the gearings. I've been feeding them different metals. They don't like the soft ones much, like gold or tin, but brass is okay. I haven't tried quicksilver. Your sword was the first steel I've had, but they seemed to like that."

She gave me a look like she was expecting something. I didn't have a reply. My scalp was beginning to tingle.

"Vincent claims he found this place," she continued, giving no indication she believed or doubted that claim. "When properly aligned, there are a dozen shadows accessible from the main face. He can get to them at will, but I have to wait for the hands to sweep the right way. I met these little guys while I was waiting, and I'm trying to make friends."

"Do they talk?"

"In clicks. I can't understand them, and I don't think they understand me."

A cluster of timepiece heads emerged from the planetary set and pushed several of their number upwards. These approached and retreated, but were harried onwards from those behind. The timid wave of them came closer and closer, until they were almost at Yve's feet. She pointed at one oblong gear above. It had unevenly spaced teeth that drove it to speed up and slow down as it spun, forcing it to vibrate on a leaf spring. The gremlins at first refused with a chiming of many tiny bells but relented almost at once. 

"That went fast. They must like the steel," she mused. The gremlin crowd parted, and most vanished to the internal workings of the clock. A few more moved towards a huge gearset on the face plate, and looked back to see if we followed. We did, and they lead us through metal paths in the workings of the machine.

"Does this place have a name?" I asked.

"Vincent calls it 'The Clock.' He's literal. I call it the Place Machine."

"How's Persimmon?" 

She cast a surprised look at me. "He's well. He's with a sorcerer in shadow now. The sorcerer says he's got worms."

"Is the sorcerer called a vet?"

"No. What's a vet?"

"Like a doctor for animals. Are you sure it's a sorcerer?" I asked.

"He rides a cloud of steam and frozen lightning," Yve replied snippily.

"Sorcerer vet," I admitted.

Soon we were on the swaying spring, a thin leaf of something like brass. It bounced from the huge gear inspite of the lack of wind. The gremlins seemed to have no problems, and they scuttled along the underside of the spring with the same grace as the top. Yve and I had to be more careful, but she was well practiced.

Soon we arrived, and the whirling gear hung before us. For all its speed, its size was greater, and the core wasn't turning that fast. We timed a bounce and caught the spokes, climbing upwards as the dwellers of the gear watched us depart. Soon we caught another wheel and rose. It lifted us to a flipping plate that spun on tiny hinges, and we emerged on the face of the clock.

Maybe it was a kilometer across. Maybe it was less, but if so, not much. It was tall and flat, difficult to gauge distances on, and face out over clouds and nothing. There was no sight of any building from which we had come. We were on the crossbar of the Roman three, and the descending minute hand was coming fast, far faster than it should. I looked the other way and saw minutes, seconds, and what had to be degrees marked on the outer ridge, but didn't have time to be sure. Then the big hand was passing us by, and we hopped on.

"I noticed you kept trying to get Vincent and I apart. That was probably wise. He looked like he was boiling for a fight, and I know I was."

"You're always boiling for a fight," she replied.

Instead of obliging her I said, "I had to kill Huggard. Dimine too. Do you remember them?"

"Yes," and she felt bad. "I watched. I'm sorry."

"Yes, well, you're right. I was looking for another fight. I think that whole room was set up to give me one." 

We descended, or the face spun. The hand shifted sideways underneath us, making us lean to stay upright. 

"It was," Yve agreed. "That's why Vincent acted like that. He really expected to test you, and you scared him. That doesn't make him safer." She looked at me warily.

"He's so open about the trap. He's not even pretending. You both are, but you're at least obliging the niceties. I'm not sure if that makes anything safer or not. I think I should just turn my back on you both and walk away."

Time kept passing, and we began to lean the other way.

"Where would you go?" she asked. 

"Don't know. Back to Isenmist and Lolimar?" And that was the exact wrong thing to say.

"Who we will have to talk about," said Yve. The foreboding was strong with this one. I needed to have my head examined.


	14. Chapter 14

14

The minute hand lifted us up, and we stepped out onto seven. Down was a complex direction, but we negotiated the big V to a small wooden door with a brass knob. Yve fiddled with it. She looked proud when it opened inwards, between the roots of a vast tree underneath a canopy that formed a green sky. Mushrooms like palms lifted up around us. Several flagstone pathways lead out through the gargantuan forest. Sunrays tracked the ground where they broke through the canopy above. There were two layers of grass, one small and proportionate to us, and the other vast. Spears of it stabbed far overhead to branch into broad blades. 

Yve did something to shut the door behind us, and put her foot on the first step of a path. She paused and gave me a guilty look. "You do know helping Vincent, and me, is a bad idea, right?"

"Yep," I agreed.

She winced at me, like a dog expecting to get kicked. 

"Sweetie, I know exactly what I'm getting into. I'm not sure I'll do it, but I know what you and Vincent are offering." 

That was why Yve was more dangerous than Vincent. Yve legitimately cared. Vincent was too honest to pretend, but instead of a professional dispassion, he wore his apathy like a badge. I would have to do something about them, but- Was there anything I could do about them that still delivered me Sandy? That was the whole trap. They were willing to give me what I wanted, and the consequences rested on my head. I was walking into a kitchen worried about the heat. 

Yve brought me to a gnome doctor with a tall, pointed hat and a fluffy beard. They got me stitched up and bandaged, and gave me a lycanthropy shot. I also got vaccinated against vampirism, zombie-plague, and witchcraft, but I didn't have any risk factors for wendigo.

"Try not to eat anyone," said Dr Kyeurkkekejak. "That one's hard to fall into accidentally."

Later, riding the hands of the Place Machine between shadows, Yve asked, "Where to now?"

""How do I get my face back?" I asked, turning from the sky to Yve.

"You go to Vincent," she admitted, looking down at her shoes.

"Is he related to Finndo? They're alike."

Yve wouldn't look at me. She watched the changing of the hands. "Finndo had a falling out in Amber. For a while he sought pleasure in shadow. He found one, unseated their gods, and established himself as king. He stayed there until he cast many shadows himself. After Amber and Chaos had their fight, some members of house Jagger of Chaos found one of those shadows, kidnapped Vincent, and brought him back to Chaos to teach him the ways of power. Vincent is Finndo."

"Oh."

"Vincent betrayed Jagger to side with Finndo, but Finndo laughed at him and spurned his help. Finndo sees him as a shallow imitation. Worse, Vincent thinks Finndo is tired of playing in shadow, and wants one of the true thrones. If that's the case, either Amber or Chaos will respond. In light of Brand, they're very thorough, and Vincent thinks either one will wipe him out too, just to be sure."

"But if Vincent's just a shadow, how did he get his power?" I asked.

"He got it from Chaos. Amber's well protected because their old king was paranoid. He didn't want rivals. Chaos is a bit more chaotic. Anyone who wants power and doesn't mind going a little mad can try for it. But Vincent's in a bind. Jagger wants him dead, and he thinks the house of Oberon is going to kill him. They're not known for their forgiving natures. If something happens to Finndo, but Jagger can't get blamed for it, Vincent thinks they'll let bygones be bygones. It's Chaos. They don't get too worked up about a few murders."

"And Derwent?"

"Like you," Yve admitted, staring at nothing. "Just a tool."

"Like you?"

"Like me." She kept looking away.

"Why are you in this? I don't understand that."

"Because I'm a shadow. I'm not real. I can't even go back to Isenmist, so the only hope I have is to pick a side. Both Amber and Chaos spend shadows like we're nothing. There's always more shadow. But I am a shadow, and a shadow me isn't me. Vincent's a shadow, so he understands. I just want to get through this, so I can go back to playing with my dogs. Vincent says he'll give me a place if you work for him."

"Ah. Persimmon's okay, right?"

"He's got worms," muttered Yve.

"And halitosis."

"He doesn't smell that bad!" she yelled and finally turned back me. 

"Would you do it?" I asked.

Now I had eye-contact, and she couldn't look away. She tried, but I held her gaze. She had common eyes, brown, with uncommon flecks of green. 

"Would you?" I repeated.

"No."

"I trust you. All right, take me to Vincent, and I'll tell him to get fucked."

 

Vincent did not take it well. There was some screaming, a little fire, and a poorly thought out murder attempt. It wasn't serious. He didn't mean it.

"You'll rot here!" he yelled when I put him down. "I'll seal the doors!"

"You do that. Bye."

He stormed out, going up along one ceiling. I waved at him. He waved back with his index and middle finger, which wasn't one I was used too, but I figured it out. Then he slammed the iron doors and I was alone with Motin. Motin was not much happier with me.

"I told you no!" he argued. Color had come back to his cheeks.

"I know. I ignored you, because I just kicked your ass, and the loser doesn't get to make decisions."

"You never beat me!"

"Fine. I beat all the people with you, and you couldn't stop me. Cry about it. I'm going back to Isenmist. Do you want to come?"

"Why are you even asking me? Won't you just do whatever you want?" he shouted. 

"Probably. But I'm pretending I care."

Motin said some things about my fathers they would not have appreciated.

"Unlikely. They're both dead."

Motin blinked. "You have two?"

I explained. "My father died, and my mother remarried to his brother. My uncle raised me. Now quit your whining. We're trapped in shadow in the mercy of an angry sorcerer. We need to get out of here."

Motin had been a farmer before joining the cult, and farmers spend a lot of time with animals. Animals screw constantly. They're also stupid. As such, Motin was familiar with an amazing spread of ways one could try to rut and fail. He instructed me to try several, and I wasn't really paying attention until he got to the part about 'double frunking' myself. It doesn't translate, and I don't have horns. It did give me an idea. 

I trumped Random.

"Sir," I said when he took the call.

"Roland," he replied squinting at me.

"May I have a trump of myself?" I asked.

He thought hard, and didn't like what he thought. Instead of answering he squinted at me. 

"With great respect, sir, it's something I don't think you'd think of. You and your kin tried to trump Finndo and got me. However you've got that Ganelon problem, so I bet none of you thought of having me trump me."

"That's a bit egocentric."

"Aren't we all?"

Random gave me the look. You know it. "I've had one prepared. What are you intending to do with it?"

"Make peace. Resolve our conflicts amicably," I replied.

"Uh huh." He thought long and hard, but at the end he gave me a trump. I looked dashing. I was perched regally on a horse, a falcon in one hand and wearing a rapier. It was a fartsy little thing. My clothes were scarlet and gold, and a chain of precious gems linked my cloak. I had that dignified-stare-into-distance that let you know I was thinking some deep stuff. Whoever made this hadn't held me in high regard. 

"Thanks, sir."

"I've got another one for you. This is Isenmist, done by Fiona," he added, passing me the card. It was Derwent's castle, his demesne in outside the fingers, and the bees bustled through wildflowers. Winds sucked clouds through the sky. "You can have it as a favor."

"A favor for what, sir?"

"Do you remember when I told you of my brother?"

"Yes, sir."

"He lived much of his life trying to kill one of his siblings. I think letting go of it made him a better man." Random paused, drumming his fingers on a table partially outside my vision. I wondered where he was, and what he was doing. "I see much of us in you, Roland. Try not to get dead."

"I'll do my best." 

He didn't look convinced. I smiled at him, really pouring on the charm. Random passed his hand between us, and his bland expression faded.

"This is the deal," I said to Motin. "I'm going to Isenmist, and then I'm going to start it. Do you want to come?"

"Or else what?"

"Fuck all if I care. That's your problem."

"Why are you so squirrelly?" he demanded, and I was about to tell him to frunk himself too, but I paused. I thought of Random.

"This is going to get bad. You have no idea. For you, the tunnels were bad. The poison was bad. For your ancestors, the yrch were bad. I'm going to call Finndo, and he ends worlds."

"Then why are you going to Isenmist? Why not summon him here?"

"Because-" and I stopped. I thought of Lolimar. In spite of myself, I wanted to see her again. I wanted to see Yve, who was with the gremlins or her dog right now. I thought of my tower in the White Wall Vale, and the silver trees on the Two Fingers at dawn. "Must I? I just learned to appreciate Isenmist. Do you want me to give it up already?"

"I don't even know what you're talking about."

"Trees, mountains, and the smell of water on bare rock," I said, and stopped caring if he understood or not. "I'm going home. Do you want to come with me?"

"Yes. I never wanted to leave."

"Right." I trumped Alamache's stronghold and stepped between.


	15. Chapter 15

15

Rocks at the roof of the world stand alone. They're peculiar. They jut out of the mountain tops, and in the silence they seem alive. They don't watch you. They're too much rocks to watch. But they give you the feeling they're alive, growing in a timescale I can't see. I've wondered about that. If I lived forever, would I have the time or patience to watch the mountains grow? What would it feel like to see a plain mound into a hill, see that hill become a mountain, and then feel the work of eons of wind and rain wear it back down? 

Funny what you think about when you're not thinking about something else.

Alamache's fortress was bigger than it had been before. The outer walls had been pushed wide and made thick. The towers stood twenty meters tall. Beyond them was a ring city encroaching on broad field, and built up near four gates. From each of them ran a winding road between farms and orchards outwards. To the south I saw another city, perhaps twenty kilometers distant. Mountain air plays havoc with your sense of distance. To the east another, and to the north was a black mountain fortress, wrapped in stone. There had once been an alpine meadow, but that was stripped away. Now the ascents were bleak rock faces and cutting pathways. Defenders could wipe them clean with arrows whenever.

I looked to the great city. Flags of white bees on a blue field flew over her towers. Lolimar preferred to wear those colors. The houses outside the city had high steeples, like Vo Done had had, and animals roaming between brick walls. It would have taken years to build all this. 

"Everyplace I go there are goats," I muttered and swore. My voice caught in my throat.

"Where are we?" asked Motin. He sounded hostile and a little suspicious. He didn't get it yet. He'd never been to Alamache's stronghold, so he didn't recognize the valleys, the mountains, and the head.

The head was barely visible any more. It was consumed by the bees. If you knew where to look, you could see hints of the skull underneath the hive, giving it form, but you could ignore that and just see the hive.

"Alamache's valley. This was his fortress."

"Who are these people?"

 

"You know them. You knew their ancestors, rather. These are the refugees from Vo Done. Come. Let's see how many decades have passed."

"Decades?"

But I was already hurrying away. 

No one recognized me. That was nice. I jogged down the mountains and across the plains. Motin couldn't keep up, so I left him. It was only fifty or sixty kilometers to the great castle, and I was there before the sun began to set. No one said anything. 

The stones of the castle wall were bound with wax, not mortar. It gave a lacquer to the outside, a shiny, muted cover. I dug at it with a fingernail, leaving a mark, but a small one. I trotted to the main gate.

The guard didn't challenge me, but he did warn me the gate closed sharply at sunset. "They're real neflins about sleeping in the yard!" he said, waving me through. 

Several hundred soldiers were training in the courtyard. They were doing it right. Most were doing physical training, working with iron bars and wheeling stones, but in the center a cluster was doing weapons. Swords, axes, maces were all blunted, and they sparred in rings. Against one wall was a long archery range. In a corner of the yard, out of sight, was a sanded ring of grapplers and boxers, and I walked over.

"Commoner come to sign up?" asked someone as I watched the wrestlers.

"Maybe. I want to see what you can do," I replied.

The yard instructor nodded. He stood next to me, and I wondered if he was going to give me the recruitment speech. Were queen and country about to come out? No.

"Watch that on in the rear," the yardie said. "See the one with his hands up? He's just come from the tunnels, and he's trying out what he learned. His opponent is a big strapping lad, but he's cocky. Muscles alone don't a winner make, but no one believes you if you just tell them that. The little guy's learning to trust the training, and the big guy's going to learn the training works."

They went at it. Little guy ran too much at first. He let the big one chase him around the ring, and the big one did. A few shots got thrown, but little guy was over thinking them. He was fighting himself, giving up speed because too much of him was tense. Good form, but too tense. Finally the big guy caught him, did some decent body work, and put him on the ground. They sprawled, and the big one took a mount. It's easy to panic when someone's sitting on your chest, hitting you. 

Little guy bridged and threw him. He scrambled like mad, went side to mount to back, and sank in the choke. Big guy clearly didn't know what was happening until his neck was in a vice, and then, by the time he figured out what to attack, he went to sleep.

"See? They never trust the training until they aren't thinking about it," said the yardie. He rolled his eyes. 

"How did you learn jiu jitsu?" I asked, baffled.

The yardie looked at me strangely. "How did you know it was called jiu jitsu?"

His accent broke when he said it. That wasn't his word, and it didn't fit his language, but he said it exactly like I-

No.

"No," I whispered, and my eyes went wide.

"No." The boxers weren't boxing. They were striking. Gruapa taught me that hit. One with a broken nose did a shoot I taught Sandy, and the other guy, a balding one, blocked like Ojum did. I staggered away from them.

The soldiers doing physical training were doing Dynamic Cardio! Those were the crazy bastards, the cultish ones, that took up the front of McKain's Gym! The fencers were doing spacing movement! 

I felt drunk. I was high. I was spinning like an idiot, staring at the world around me, and seeing McKain's gym in everything they did. I saw movements from my past, kicks I knew, punches, sword techniques. They were doing squats. Who in their right mind thinks of the squat!? What person wakes up in the morning and says to himself, "I should pile a big-ass piece of steel on my back, and then pretend to sit down and stand up with it for an afternoon?" Who has that thought!?

I passed out.

 

"Hello, Roland," said Lolimar, and her voice was smoother than my dreams. 

I sat up in her throne room, before the lords and ladies of Vo Lolimar, in what had been the keep of Alamache. The walls were tall and high, buttressed inside and out with translucent blocks. Candles filled the walls, intricately carved so smoke raced out the roof, but the light stayed within. The queen's throne was five steps above the floor, but those steps were polished and clear. She floated above us all. I was on a couch on the floor. The room was packed, and dim shadows of the crowds outside were pressed against the walls, trying to see through the foggy stones.

For a long time I said nothing, taking in the room. The silence deepened as tension rose. I heard breathing in the back, and the faint hissing of someone trying not to breath at all. I stood up and looked over them all. I looked up to Lolimar, and for the first time, saw an empty throne beside her. There was a crown on it that had never been worn, a sword that had never been drawn, and a blue robe that was folded and dusty. 

I spend a lot of time confused. I don't think I'm dumb, and I've got a fifty-fifty shot of being above average, but so does everyone else. Yet things hit me when I'm not looking. What should I have done about Sandy on that first meeting? Everything happened because I did what I did, but should I just have let him go? I don't know, and I don't think I ever will. I don't second guess myself over that any more. What I do think about is why I don't know, and I have an answer for that.

In the moment our choices aren't clear. We don't have opportunity to think things out, putting aside emotion or logic in turn, either to feel our way around a person or calculate out the answer to a problem. Things get complicated. People watching you don't see the complexity. I've tried to give you mine, but you may read it, you won't feel it. I think that's the difference. I was in the complexity, and I was torn between choices that were murky. They seemed so simple, and each one was a pit.

This was the exception. This one wasn't hidden, subtle, or sneaky. Lolimar was before me, and an empty throne beside her. Did I want to sit in it? I was on the spot, I wasn't ready for this, and I was so confused. Life's tough. Lolimar or not?

Yve, who I trusted, said Lolimar was an attempted murderer. I don't think the queen had held the knife, but someone else would do so under her bidding. She'd certainly been willing to talk me into doing her killing for her, even while acting oh, so against it. 

I had crawled over a sick man to beat Finndo to death. I had done so with my hands and feet, and it had come from instinct. The single desire for that murder was my pulse. 

I made a fist and clenched it. I watched the skin turn white, and my callous stretch. They fit my knuckles better this way then when my hands were open.

"Hello, My Queen," I said and climbed the dias to her.

She tried to say something, and I shut her mouth with mine. She didn't fight, but she was tense and alone. I clutched her tighter and bent her body to mine. Suddenly she surrendered, put her arms around me, and we embraced on the throne. Underneath her dress, she was soft and supple. The crowd exploded into cheers, and when we parted, the nobles rushed forward to crown me and wrap me in the royal robes.


	16. Chapter 16

16

We had no time alone until that evening, and then she drugged me with wine and her skin. When the night was long and quiet, and the impenetrable walls of her bed chamber allowed neither light nor sound in, we lay together without talking. This room had no transparent roof. Banked coals gleamed in the hearth, and their gentle crackling was the only sound. It was a long time before my madness for Lolimar abated, and I lay still, thinking, and pretending to be asleep.

In the darkness I felt a movement of heat. She was leaning over me, looking down. I think that moment lasted for hours. Then she kissed me and left the bed. Wrapping herself, she slipped out the door.

No one was allowed in the royal chambers at night but her, and now me. No one saw her creep to a stretch of smooth wall, neither stone nor wood, but the impermeable surface of wax. There was no latch, for this was a wall, not a door. She leaned down and whispered to a drone, who flew up and away through a hole in the ceiling. Then the wall itself drew aside, and she descended stairs into the earth.

I hit and rolled, and missed the opening by a hair. A swarm of insects lowered it behind her, where it settled without a whisper. I pressed my ear against it, and heard only the faintest of footsteps retreating. The bees paid me no attention, but they didn't help me either.

 

Hell and biscuits, I thought, and decided she had to be heading for the hive. She had to have a tunnel to the hive. Otherwise her most powerful servants would be useless in the winter or if she didn't want everyone to know her business. Why keep a secret door if the swarm of insects to open it blotted out the sky every time she wanted to pass? She had to be heading for the hive. I ran off, checking windows, until I found one wide enough. Then I threw on clothes and tumbled out, twenty meters to the ground, a ghostly run to the walls, up and over, and across the killing ground to the ring city. I ran like vengeance. If anyone saw me, they didn't say anything.

At the mouth of the hive I paused, and I admit I felt a bit nervous. God, that's a lot of wasps. But they ignored me so long as I didn't step on any of them. Down I went. 

Inside was black and unpleasant. My bit of candle cast more shadows than light, and the walls seethed. They ran over my feet, and when I traced the sides of the tunnel, they skittered through my fingers. Sometimes I felt the scrape of stingers negligently brushing my skin. This passage was mostly unchanged, and I remembered it well from long ago. It was only days, my time. 

The pattern room looked like I remembered. The pattern itself was redder and throbbed like a pulse, but the room was broad and cavernous. Several side corridors branched off the main run, and here there were no more wasps. I listened to each until I heard voices. Then I blew out my candle and went by feel.

"We talked about this," Pisis chastised Lolimar. 

"We did, but our plans did not cover what happened. He walked in the main gate. Hundreds saw him. When he fainted, they were already muttering that he disdained the new kingdom. Of course I brought him to the throne room. I had to deal with the rumors before they got started," Lolimar replied. She was taller than Pisis and looked down at him. 

"Where you crowned him," Pisis said.

"Where I greeted him, and then he kissed me."

"Which you allowed."

"Oh, I should have fought him off in front of all of my people?" snapped Lolimar.

"And instead you did what?"

"Well, I had to do something with him." Lolimar said.

Pisis was not amused. 

"You're looking at this the wrong way," Lolimar continued. "You've only ever looked at this the wrong way. You want to drive him out, but his presence can only help us, so long as we can influence him. If making him weak is useful, harnessing his strength is invaluable."

"And can you?" asked Fiona, red-headed princess of Amber. "How much influence on him do you have?"

"I have anything on him I want, whenever I want," replied Lolimar, and I could hear her smirk in the dark.

They were all briefly quiet. "Then this is not unreasonable. Keep him here. He doesn't have trumps so he can't wander, and so long as you maintain his attention, he won't go looking for them."

"But that keeps him here! I need him gone!" shouted Pisis, and he stomped. "You're a bitch in heat! When you sued for my help, I agreed, but the deal was that the throne remained empty for me! Why should I trust you, you lying-"

There was a hiss and a gurgle, and he tried to say something about whores but his voice fluttered. There was a wet thud.

"You and that?" asked Fiona.

"That? No. He wanted it, but no."

"Then you misplayed him. You can't tease and tempt, but then yank the prize away from them. They get jealous. They feel like they're owed something, and they won't even negotiate after that. But it inconveniences us both to do without him."

"We'll be fine."

"I'll be fine. You're..." Fiona sighed. "Don't forget your own limits."

"I'm well within them."

I was have given quite a bit to see Fiona's face in that silence.

"Yes. This does change our plan. Without Pisis, we will not have control over the spider-demons-"

"I can control the shoggoths," Lolimar interrupted her, and Fiona overrode her.

"Do not try. You gain nothing. Small queen, you grossly overestimate yourself. That drunk man in your bed is a power, and I've seen your kind before. He was famous when you were a girl, and you couldn't have him. Then he was epic when you were a woman, and you had someone else. Now you do, and you're promptly going to throw him away for the next thing you can't have. But you presuppose you can keep him. With all of shadow open, I don't think you can."

"He is mine," Lolimar snapped.

"Perhaps."

"You've been silent," observed Fiona. 

"Does it worry you?" said a voice I didn't recognize.

"It's unusual."

"I've been thinking. You may go now, Queen Lolimar."

The temperature in that room dropped by twenty degrees. Instead of letting the silence grow, the strange voice said, "Your Majesty," in a dismissive tone, and there was a faint shuffle. Someone turned to face someone else, and someone hissed when they got a back turned to them. Sharp footsteps lead off, woman's footsteps. (Women and men wore very different shoes around here. You could tell the sex of a person by whether they heelstruck when they walked or toestruck, women effectively being barefoot.) 

"You've been thinking?" prompted Fiona.

"I have. Brooding, maybe. Do you know what galls me? I'm alive due to someone else's incompetence. Not my own brilliance, not skill, not tactics, not even luck. I can't blame luck. The longer I live, the more I find luck an omniscient force. But it wasn't any of those things. It was a moron. That bothers me. It shouldn't, because it was a bit of luck that the person who found me was a moron, and a bit of luck they looked at the hole in my head and thought 'dead,' but had they thought just a little, none of that would have mattered. But morons don't think, hence why they're morons.

"Did you know I once met a brilliant retard? Really brilliant. Learning disability of some nature, mentally stopped growing around his early teens. Possibly earlier. But he recognized it, and thought about everything he did. He was slow because of it. He couldn't move quickly while analysing his every action, but everything he did was correct. He never screwed up. Stone mason, and if shadow was a fairer place, sculptor. I had him build a gate for me once. Best stonework I've ever seen."

"I'm touched," said Fiona. 

"Ah, wit."

"Why tell me this? That sounded suspiciously like revealing a weakness, and that's not your style," asked Fiona, wrapping suspicion around her words like armor.

"No faith, Fi?"

"I trust you like a brother."

"As you should." A long silence, punctuated by breathing. I thought of hurrying back to Vo Alamache, lest Lolimar arrive to see me gone. Yet my gut said I was about to hear something important. 

"Tactics," the voice said. "I want to give you a bit of understanding, and I want to see what you do with it. You see, I think you're stupid. And I think you've compensated for being stupid by taking pride in luck. You didn't save the world before. You happened to be related to someone who did, and you happened to have a late shot at moving your chips when the ball had stopped bouncing. 

"I hate stupid people."

"What do you--" she gasped.

"Oh, don't fight it. Or fight it if you feel like it. I don't care. What- Oh, yes. Stupid people. You see, Fiona, you're stupid. This, right here? I told you what I was going to do. You're still here. Fiona, you're not bright."

There was a heavy thump, something human-weighted hitting the ground and folding. 

"This is your last moment, and these are your last thoughts, and I want to speak the last words you hear. Fiona, you play stupid games in the short term. You get upset of transient difficulties. So Oberon was going to die. That's fine. He died anyway, and in ten thousand years, there will be another king. He didn't matter. You had a choice. You could have walked away after seeing the lay of the land and you didn't- Oh, are you trying to curse me? How's that working for you?

"You see, you do have to curse. I don't know what romantic bullshit you've heard about cursing someone in the silences of your heart. That's nice. Then someone is cursed only in the silences of your heart. Since that's stilling now, that's a risk I'm willing to take. But if you want to curse me in the real world, via your powers throughout shadow, you do need to speak. Use your words, Fi. Shape wind and air, and the blood of Amber will leave a mark across the sky."

"Speak, Fi. Speak it. Speak it and-"

I charged Finndo, but the tunnel was probably trapped so I went through a wall. He was staring right at me, a smirk on our face, and his thick, unctuous tongue rolled between his teeth and lips. Fiona was sprawled out below him, and there were torchbugs on the walls. Pisis was seething, a slithering mass of blood and leather.

"Didn't I just tell you you had a chance to go away?" he asked me. "Stupid people. If I don't explicitly use the word bait, you're too slow to figure it out."

Noises faded in and out of hearing. I was cold and stiff from lying still. Finndo was warmed up. Pisis did something. We were in shadow, next to my pattern. I stretched my shoulders and willed readiness into my muscles. The room trembled like a speaker when the bass dropped, recoiling from us all, and thudding forward. It made no noise in air, but the stuff of the world thrummed with power. 

"Hello, Sandy."

"Hello, Roland."


	17. Chapter 17

17

After monologuing exactly enough to draw me out of hiding and into his trap, Sandy went quiet. He gloated that he'd gotten the last word in, the final insult to my intelligence. I wanted to say something else, something about him, sex, and a goat, but that would leave me inferior. His thick-lipped smirk took us all in. 

Oh, sorry. We haven't established this was a trap. Forget I said anything. This was totally not a trap. 

He had a single-edged knife in a slashing grip, three hands of reach, southpaw, striker's footwork, and he hard initiated high, aiming for my eyes. I faded and rolled around his follow-up thrust to connect with his jaw. He went loopy, and I unloaded my other hand to his temple. Then he staggered away, flailing, while his eyes uncrossed, and I waited.

The thing about knives is you don't need to be paying attention to do damage. If you are, you can do hellacious damage, but even flailing like that he can-

What?

This is good stuff right here! I'm telling you how I took one of the pinnacle knife-fighters of-

You spend hours going on about who's related to who and when-

Fine! 

Y'all need culture.

While loopy he came in again, baiting, and tried to take my fingers off when I countered. I didn't, swinging to the side to let him go. He circled again. Poke with the knife, poke with the knife, poke a little too hard with the knife and I was over top, he took the bait, and I broke a floating rib. Now he was wincing. Back and clear, and he pokes.

I wanted his bells ringing. Whatever scheme he had going, he'd come up with long before, and he had that look about him where he said, "I'll just do whatever," and never thought of how complex whatever got when I put knuckles to his head.

"Bastard! Coward!" he yelled, and the seething cocktail of concussed frustration boiled between his ears. It was great. I smirked back and got contact on those ribs. He yowled.

Geez, he was strong. He incidentally cut the walls apart with missed slashes. The ceiling fell around us, and confused bees bumbled to get away. I exploited the rubble to blitz from above. He tried to counter but failed, giving up his arm, and then I matched grip on his thigh. I hit him with the ground, slamming him side to side, switched both hands to an ankle, and cracked him like a whip. He had no idea what was happening. 

Smash, he hit the ground. Smash, he tried to hold on, and I yanked him and the floor free. Smash, his skull bounced, and up, I hurled him, grabbed his face as he fell, and bombed him through the ground. Wax shattered underfoot. He landed unarmed, staring up through a hole in the floor where I was framed and lit on all sides by fireflies.

"Oh, right," he whispered, and gravity attacked.

I fell through the floor, and the ceiling followed, crashing down in fragments. It boiled with wasps. Sandy stood up and leered. His head shook side to side, and swelling distorted his face. He fought upright, but his legs wouldn't obey. More ceiling fell, this time some hitting him, and we broke through the floor again.

Pisis came down as well, only when he hit, he splashed. His fluids were nothing but spider legs and webbing, clawing at the air as they boiled. He stank of burning hair, but he wasn't dead. From that mass rasped a raging hiss, all fury and no intelligence. The force of a dozen worlds wavered as boulders tumbled onto Sandy's head, and I crawled towards him.

I got my hands on Fiona. She was all screwed up. Weird puffy bruises marked her back, and she wasn't breathing. I checked her pulse. It was present and weak.

"Don't die," I told her and crawled off. 

The chattering of a legion's legs echoed through the dark corridors, over the sound of the collapsing hive. This was going to be bad. Honeycomb boulders crashed down, and the fireflies were swarming down. Sandy was on his back, his leg broken, and he was trying to focus on a card. That looked hard.

I got him in the throat, and he completely forgot what he was doing.

"Are you daft?" he gurgled, and I smashed him in the head again.

"You belligerent fuckers do not understand! You start shit, end worlds, kill everyone, and think we're going to let it all go? You create monsters out of men and think we'll walk away from it when it suits you? You think this is a game?"

"But-"

I sprawled on him, letting weight do the work, and his head bounced off the floor. The charge of a legion of spiders filled my ears, but the enraged hum of the wasps retorted. We were within the hive, and they mobilized with that insect sentience, the swarm intelligence of a horde's immune system. For the first time I realized the glowbugs were a special type of drone, fitted with a stinger and phosphorescent gland. A million of them attacked a million more spiders, ranging in size from reasonable bugs to hippo-sized shoggoths. Splatters of wet biology painted the walls. I forced myself up, got an elbow under me, and dropped onto Sandy with all his gravity.

That was when he understood. Up until then he really didn't get it. I wasn't a person yet, merely a shadow. When the shoggoths fought the wasps above us, when I'd left Fiona to die, and when I kicked his trump away from us both so Sandy couldn't escape, that was when he finally figured it out. That was the moment he cut the bullshit, stopped worrying about hiding a card for the bigger play later, and met me in all of his power.

Sandy set himself on fire, and punching hurt like a bitch. His skull hardened and bulged, raising rams horns to protect his brain. His eyelids split and formed new membranes. I got my fingers on his throat so he broached extra nostrils, and he flailed at me with claws and fangs. We shattered another layer of ground.

I went for an arm-bar, but he decided his joints bent both ways. When that didn't work I ripped it a good half meter out of the socket, but he just grew more shoulder. We were both burning, but he was inured against it. I dropped him to seize a boulder, something like an ox cart and heaved it over head. Sandy blocked, but half a ton of stone wasn't to be denied. We shattered even more of the floor.

With a groan the great wheel of the pattern broke free. It sledged down through the swarm melee and devastated both sides. Their ichors caught pattern fire. 

"Shtutik," gasped Sandy from a mouth in his abdomen and turned fully liquid. 

I started swearing in the dark, and that attracted arachnid attention. They rushed me while I charged after the flowing pool of Finndo. They didn't slow me much, but it was enough that he got to a crack in the wall and dropped. Even when I got my fingers on him, he was just water, and I couldn't get a grip. Soon I was pounding my fists into dry earth while more of the cavern imploded.

"Fiona!" I yelled and fought back towards where I'd come.

She wasn't conscious, and her pulse had stopped. It was too early for rigor mortis, but she was rigid. I yanked her up, patted myself for a card. They were all gone. Fiona had one up her sleeve, and I hit it. The vast pattern rolled by, its edges cutting the floor like a buzz saw, and it sank around us. For a moment the light was brilliant and terrifying, but the card was easy to focus on. We fell through.

 

The world was called Lubloo, and Fiona was worshipped as a goddess. Their medical technology was beyond anything I've seen. When we arrived she was hustled away to full restorative treatment, and I got arrested. It was a friendly arrest, and they were very polite as they tended my wounds. But they definitely arrested me, and weird machines pointed hurtful devices at my intensive care bed.

Sometime later Her Divine Omnipotence joined me and made arrangements for our privacy. Given the situation, I let her speak first, and she said, "That got a bit out of hand."

"Only cause he's squishy."

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing. I saved your life, so I'd like some answers."

Fiona did this thoughtful thing were she smiled like she wasn't scheming furiously. "I do like to encourage people when they do that," she agreed.

I nodded.

"Roland, in your time on Earth, did you ever read a book about a whale?"

"No."

"I will make a point of getting you a copy." She looked out a window, gazing down at the night sky. Her fingers traced patterns in condensation on the glass. The lights made her red haid gleam. Her dress had no shoulders and only an intricate braid of platinum bands held it up, forming a defacto necklace and choker. It was fit for a goddess.

"I'm very impressed," I said. "And under other circumstances, I'd be more impressed by your beauty. But a close sibling of yours just badly underestimated how intent I am on getting my hands on him, and if you're trying to distract me, I assure you this is not a good time. Now, please tell me of Finndo, what you know of Arryn, and why you were in a pick-up truck there, so long ago."

Fiona was ever so mildly amused. She smiled. "Put that together, did you?"

"Recently. Your story, please."

"How can I refuse?" She sat down and made herself a drink, and delved into history.


	18. Chapter 18

18 

Amber is not a warm place for Bleys or I. Our family can get hostile, and we're worse when we're justified. Justifications are easy, but the greatest one, the end of the Patternfall War, Random's crowning, Corwin's actions, is little more than an accusation of my brother and I by the unicorn herself. We don't spend much time in Amber.

If it was chilly there the Courts of Chaos were frigid. They have new laws forbidding killing a scion of Amber, and I am quite sure they'd enforce them strictly if Bleys or I wound up dead. We did, after all, lead them into a war they lost. They were looking for means to wage that war before we met them, but we're easy targets to blame. Brand openly betrayed them at the end, Bleys and I switched to the winning side, and our relatives humiliated them at arms in their own courts. We spend little time in Chaos either.

To put it bluntly, I was moping. No one at Castle Amber or the Courts of Chaos liked me very much, and I was feeling sorry for myself. I despise that kind of romantic melancholy in others, and I was appalled to catch myself doing it. It's not only childish, it will get you killed. But if I was stuck in it, I was going to walk shadow to find a place I could mope until I was done, and so I wandered.

("Big risk, telling me this," I said.

"If you tell anyone, I'll tell them I lied to gain your trust. You know my family. Who do you think they'll believe?" she replied.

"Hey...")

As I said, I had no clear destination. I found myself in a beachfront city where the waves are clean, the social scene complex, and the dancing exceptional. There was an intense factional war between four types of dance music I immersed myself in. Don't bother commenting. I know you didn't pay attention.

From a statistical perspective, I believe it's impossible for one of us to randomly come across another's shadow. I'm always amused when someone makes that argument, as our greatest power is manipulation of statistics. 

So I was in my personal melodrama about how everyone in Amber was out to get me, and found my shadow devoted to exactly that. It took me a little while to discover that it wasn't just me doing the manipulation. At first I thought I was whinier than I thought, which is typical, but when I inspected the shadow, I discovered most of the shadow-work was done in a hotel I didn't visit, an exercise center I didn't explore, and involved people I'd never met. Naturally I was curious. It was a welcome distraction. It was even better when I noticed the manipulation was different than I expected.

When we work shadow, we work on the stuff of shadow. This is how our father taught us, and it's the means appropriate to a king. We manipulate the entire world at once, or as much of the world as we want, localized around ourselves. The unknown manipulator was manipulating specific people and places. If this sounds like splitting hairs, understand that methodologically, the difference is huge. I got tabs on who the manipulator was and divined he was using the Pattern. I assumed he was another of Oberon's children, unknown to the rest of us.

I also got information on you, Graupa, most of the regulars to the gym, etc. Finndo, let's call him by his name, didn't notice me, and neither did Vincent, who I also didn't recognize. I was in no particular hurry, so when Vincent showed up, I remained hidden and allowed them to conduct their feud. The invasion and subsequent war caught me entirely by surprise.

I was even more surprised when you both disappeared and remained in your apartment, Finndo started wearing your face, and shadow armies conquered the world. I went looking for you and found Finndo, you, getting an immune suppressor. Knowing that Vincent's armies were chasing you, I made a point of delivering you to them to see what happened.

Yes. Tragic. You've been betrayed. Please whine about it now, so we can move on. Finished? Thank you.

I did not expect the result. I did not expect anything that followed, and in the ensuing conflict, I retreated to a nearby world for safety. I survived unharmed when Arryn was destroyed. For the record, I had nothing to do with that. I'm not even entirely sure how Finndo did it. But I watched.

After that, I checked up on a few things. Vincent seemed the most important party involved, and he was trapped in a shadow where time moved like molasses. It was very clever, and I freed him. He told me a highly improbable trail of lies, which I pretended to believe, and fled to Chaos.

Next I went looking for you and found you in an extremely bizarre shadow. You were deep beyond Ygg, and your shadow was erratic. The timeline wasn't constant. It sped up and slowed down, and technology worked in strange ways. You were entertaining yourself with the yrch, so I ignored you, but set alarms around your shadow to be careful.

Then I went home, and compared the new pattern user, Finndo, to our family history. I knew of Finndo, but of course he was dead. His death had been confirmed in the Battle of Gnemesh Eer, eons ago. Furthermore, they did not look alike. While my father and grandfather were both shapeshifters, none of my generation has demonstrated the gift, and my grandfather Dworkin believed it had died out. I decided it was likely an unknown, some bastard Oberon spawned in shadow and never knew. The Pattern is in our blood, so I was surprised the new player could use it without walking the Pattern of Amber, but not shocked. 

But if it's just blood, and you Arrytes can take a transfusion from Amberites, that means our power is not nearly as protected as we thought. I went through Dworkin's notes. He didn't have the answer, but he had theorized the question could be asked, and even come up with an experimental setup to test it. It was the writing of a new pattern, one without powers in and of itself. Without powers, it didn't even require the Jewel of Judgement. I found Derwent, had him do the legwork, and promised him if he could get you to walk it, I'd send him home.

He, you, and I did. 

During all of this time, I'd made contact with the royal family. They had influence in the world, and they made my work more comfortable. I was very careful to avoid you, and during your monomania, you never knew. I also noticed young Lolimar's infatuation with you, but I figured that would pass. Girls crush. Most of us get over it.

During this time Finndo entered your shadow. I removed myself from Vo Done and watched. He molded shadow very carefully, and manipulated events so blood transfusions were far easier than they had been. Commensurate with that rates of infection plummeted, and humanity nearly tripled in numbers. With the past social institutions gone and a huge population boom underway, culturally Isenmist was a boat without a rudder. Finndo recruited Pisis to do his work, and they began changing the people.

There was that revolution which lead to you walking the pattern, and Derwent called me, more specifically Bleys. I'd made sure no one here knew of me. We showed up, and took Derwent home, payment for services rendered. He tried to get Lolimar to go with him, but she knew or guessed he was only a bit player in his homeworld. She has ambitions. She declined. After he was gone we took you to Amber. 

("Wait. When did you provide the Fountain of Youth?"

"Far earlier, when Derwent had just arrived."

"She said it was when you picked me up."

Fiona put her hand condescendingly on my arm. "Yes, dear. She probably did.")

I told Random some of this, but he didn't believe me. He certainly didn't trust me. He sent you back to Isenmist via Martin. Martin and Vaille are the only ones he trusts. As I said, time in Isenmist is erratic, so you arrived shortly after you left, within a year. Lolimar had not yet moved.

Of course I didn't trust Random, so I watched you return. When you did, you liased with Lolimar, and she realized how she could retake her throne. Her worry was Yve, because it's obvious Yve likes you, equally obvious you like her, and so Lolimar had the Geiger go visit her. Meanwhile, I hinted to Vincent that he should be watching. The Geiger is an intimidating sort, and Vincent having the subtlety of a brick, swooped in with all sorts of madness that Gun was coming to kill her. She believed him, and they fled. The Geiger chased them out into the wilds, but unable to move through shadow, he's probably chasing them still. 

By then Pisis, under Finndo's direction, was experimenting with blood transfusions among the common people of Isenmist. He started with those that had taken your immune suppressant. It did not work well.

("Did Finndo put them up to it?"

"Yes and no. Pisis put the idea in their heads, but he put in a lot of heads, hoping someone would jump. They did. No one specifically told them to do so, but it was ensured that someone would try.")

You and Lolimar showed up, and Pisis tested the effects of his blood transfusion powers. They failed to defeat you. Then you left, and Lolimar was alone. She had the loyalty of the people and the threat of your terrifying return, but Pisis had power. They came to a power sharing arrangement. I believe Pisis thought she was going to marry him.

("Did those two--"

"She says no."

"Is she lying?"

"Ask her.")

After this nearly eighty years passed. Lolimar lead those who would follow her to Alamache's stronghold, and exposed them all to the Fountain of Youth. She defeated old age. The recipient of their fanatic loyalty, she parlayed and put off Pisis. He sued Finndo for help, but Finndo didn't care. 

Finndo had figured out a way to access memories imprinted in the pattern. He was very selective of what memories were accessible, limiting his efforts to instinct and reflex. Finally deciphering how blood transfusions work, he started taking common men and making them walk the pattern, imprinting your reflexes on them. You see why he was so careful with the memories? He didn't want to create an army that disliked him like you did. This Finndo was breeding a human race immune to the perils of age, printed with your combat abilities, and fanatically loyal to Lolimar, who he intended to control. No matter what, she would not be able to remain unwed for long. Immortality or not, the new cultural norms required it. I think she was getting lonely, too. Eventually someone would catch her attention.

Finndo intended it to be himself. I reintroduced myself to oppose Finndo, and there was an elaborate conflict in place. Had you more subtlety, you would have appreciated it.

("Hey!")

Of course you returned. Lolimar pounced, and Pisis realized his hopes were dashed. He was displeased. But he was still very powerful, and Lolimar knew she had to do something about him that night. She drugged you and had me arrange a meeting. Lolimar even trumped me to show you sleeping in her bed.

("She would do that?"

"Oh, you sweet summer child.")

By then I knew Finndo was Finndo, and I suspected Finndo knew who I was. He was the only one who might recognize me, and I wasn't invisible during the years you were away the second time. I feared Finndo. Knowing I needed an insurance policy, I also drugged you, except I drugged you with an antidote as well as an anti-alcohol potion. 

Then we met below the hive. Pisis fell into a rage, so Finndo stabbed him. However Pisis is now more experiment than man. In his veins flow the blood of strange creatures. I do not think one knife thrust will finish him. Finndo indicated he knew who I was, and I indicated I knew who he was. That was a mistake. I knew you were listening, but I thought Finndo would operate more subtly. His vermin attacked me. I lost consciousness, woke up here, and I presume you know what transpired between better than I.


	19. Chapter 19

19

"I'm surprised you took part personally, there at the end," I said. We were in another hospital sitting room, because that seems to be the way Amberites recuperate. The mechanical bed was tucked behind a broad, sweeping peninsula-counter of glass and silver. Wooden roses climbed the walls, and the ceiling was mother-of-pearl. The floor was some form of synthetic marble. I think we were in space, because window light brightened the ceiling before the floor, and the sky was full of stars.

"I dislike to," she admitted. "However some things require a personal touch. Bleys is not...apt for social conflicts."

I nodded and went to the window. We were in space. Some world of water and ice rotated underneath us, equator shooting hurricanes like a machine gun. Four of them were tearing around the surface. I thought of spending a few weeks watching them, perhaps seeing them combine. Fiona stood beside me, but she looked up. This world had many rings, outside the orbit of our satellite, and they painted the sky twisted colors. Two suns hid behind them, casting prisms. 

"How much time has passed in Isenmist?" 

"Very little. Less than a day, though we can't be certain. I've done things so that when I escape via that card, not too much can transpire behind me. Time here is very quick as well."

"So hours?"

"Possibly minutes. I repeat, we can't be sure. Isenmist is erratic."

"Can you fix it?"

"Fix it how?"

"Can you do something so that Isenmist has a stable timeframe? Set it to a normal timeline, so coming and going isn't a matter of stepping through history?"

"Easily," she replied.

I looked at her, wondering what she wanted for it. Fiona met my eyes and surrendered nothing.

"How's Random on Finndo?" I asked.

"He's strictly against fratricide."

"I'm not a prince of Amber."

"We've noticed."

"Vincent made almost the exact same offer to me. You say you introduced him and Yve? Are you all working together?"

"I have no idea what he's working towards. How can we be working together?"

"God damn bloody cagey Amberites," I muttered at the window.

Fiona lifted her chin to the sky.

Everyone wanted Finndo dead. It wasn't hard to figure out why, but no one was willing to pull the trigger. They were all too careful, guarding their positions too well, and keeping their backs secure. They were pointedly not giving me any cover. I should have expected no less.

My cards were still on Lolimar's nightstand, but Fiona could put me in contact with Random. Yet that involved a linkage between us. She was already linked to Isenmist as, what did they call it, a shadow of desire? Those were found, enjoyed, and discarded without thought. That tie wasn't strong. 

But it was to me.

"What do you think Finndo's after? He's running around pissing people off. Plenty of people do that with no reason, but Finndo seems to have a plan."

Fiona looked away from the stars and examined me. She dissected me with her eyes, coldly, wondering how I, a shadow, would understand the motivations of a scion of Amber. 

"Revenge. Oberon's dead, but we all know grudges don't die with their targets. By now I imagine Finndo blames every child of Amber, everyone related to the crown, and most of the Courts of Chaos. If Oberon was alive, he'd just want Oberon dead. But my father isn't, and so he's visiting his revenge on everyone else. We're poor targets, but if he gets enough of us, it will balance out."

"You think's he's out to kill everybody? Omnicide?"

"No. I think he's out for revenge. But it never ends with revenge. People who start that path tend not to turn back," she said, looking at me.

I turned away and approached the sideboard. There was some green stuff that was delicious, and some little blue chips that were bitter sweet. I sniffed a whitish-red paste, and it had to be an acquired taste. It smelled like stale beer, but more acidic. They also had whiskey. Fiona was smoking when I turned around.

"Your kind. You don't get cancer?" I asked.

"It takes too long. We recover intermittently."

"That would be nice," I mused.

"You've got Amber blood in your veins," she observed. "Bleys is rather unhappy with you about that."

"That's too bad. I rather like Bleys," I admitted.

She raised an eyebrow. 

"Bleys is a bastard. A crafty bastard, a likeable bastard, and a skilled bastard, but a bastard. He can be relied upon to bastardize his way through the world, and slip in and out of trouble with a wet squirt. I feel no guilt for anything I've done to him, and enjoy his company for it."

Fiona shook her head and smiled, turning back to the window. The cherry in her cigarette cast no reflection.

She was as open as Vincent, yet more skilled. She made it easy to get played, avoided the confrontations Vincent revelled in. She was dangerous, and equally intent on hanging me out to dry if I did her work. Naturally, I found her incredibly sexy. 

"Take me to Isenmist, please," I decided. 

"As you wish," she agreed. She lead me through corridors where I never saw another being to a set of double blast doors. They were wrapped in gold and green, and across their matte face was a clever working of the pattern. It was made of crystal, but the crystal dove and surfaced in the steel. The whole thing might be behind there, waving and rippling. Fiona put a card in a slot, and touched a button. The door's ground open, and Isenmist was beyond.

Derwent's hive was collapsing, shooting plumes of fire and smoke into the sky. Stars were falling like dead roaches. We weren't far from Vo Alamache but saw people pouring from her gates, carrying their living on their backs. Those outside the city were fighting to get in, and already a pitched melee was forming on the bare ground outside the walls. 

I looked at Fiona. She beckoned me on, indicating she would remain behind. I rolled my eyes at her and stepped through shadow. 

 

"Calm down. Go home. Stop fighting," I yelled, elbowing people out of my way I as I fought against the crowd, aiming for the gate.

"But Sir Roland!" Someone recognized me. "These are the end times! We're all going to die!"

"No, we're not. Shut up." 

More rioting, some screaming, lots of apocalyptic prophecies, and someone trying to steal another man's goats. I considered ass-kicking for peace, but I was in a bit of a hurry. Too many people required my services. I tried to calm everyone down as I went, and gave the gate guards some encouragement. The portcullis should have been closed, but that was quibbling over details. Inside the fortress, there were fewer people, but these were used to their foibles being catered too. They clutched my limbs and clothing as I pushed through. A few got smacked.

Lolimar was in our bedroom. She startled when I came through the door, twitching, and bent over almost to a crouch. For a moment neither of us spoke. Then she straightened, assumed royal poise, and relaxed. 

"Roland, where have you been?"

"Trying to calm the people. They're scared. The hive collapsed. Do you know why?"

"We need to find out," she replied. 

Good answer, I thought. Completely true, and yet misleading. 

"Let's go," I agreed. 

She had an iron grip on her citizenry. Once she told them to calm down, they did. She passed through the fighting horde and a touch of her hand, a stray word, put their weapons aside. Some followed her, but most trudged back, either to castle or city, and returned to their homes. Messengers raced to the Life Crag Fortress, where the Fountain of Youth was, or Southern Midway, the citadel to the south that guarded the lowland route outside the Finger Mountains. More messengers rushed to the townships in between so that when morning came, they were already spreading the word. The word was calm.

"I'm going to head in there," I decided around dawn, looking at the hive. "Want to come?"

"Oh, no," she declined. "I need to be with my people, providing them a queen."

I loved these little games. "You're the only one for the job," I said and took my leave.

 

Their numbers had dwindled a hundredfold. Where the tunnels had teemed with bees, now only a few scuttled by. Most passageways were empty, and the great shaft that lead to the pattern was one. 

The pattern hall itself was gone. Many levels of floor had crumbled, and the scything pattern had broken free and rolled, its edges cutting the fundamental fibers of the hive apart. There were dead things everywhere. Bee corpses littered the spiderwebs that covered the walls, clustered with the web-spinners impaled on their stingers. Great chunks of the walls hung free of the rest, but webbing supported them. I stared into the depths of the hole for a long time, but did not see the deep gleam of the pattern. Perhaps it had landed face down. Perhaps rubble covered it. Either I climbed down, into that, or I walked away.

I whined for a bit and then went down.

There was a shoggoth the size of a hippo hanging from the ceiling. So many wasps enveloped it that it looked armored. Its poisons had killed them, but their stingers had torn apart its lungs, leaving it to die fighting on a thread. There were many more. I had to weave around them, going deeper into the earth, and trying not to step directly on the carnage on the floor. 

A moment of humility hit me. I realized I was not a bright man, for all of the good plans involved running away. 

I could see because some fireflies were tagging along behind me. They didn't fly too straight, tending to bounce off walls, but they generally kept up if I moved slow. In the vastness of the central abyss, where holes tore apart the floors, they had space to move reasonably fast. There I descended, watching for long, rolling caverns the pattern had cut as it tumbled. We went deeper, and the air got warmer, wetter, and smelled of nastiness. 

A vertical slit a hundred meters tall opened from the main shaft at the bottom. Its mouth was toothed in dead bugs. I edged in.

They had the pattern. Spiders, legions of them, millions, billions, wrapped it in silks and dragged it across the ground. They formed long trains, pulling in unison, and skittering in and out in shifts. The pattern glowed furiously, burning away the walls it passed and smoldering the silk lines. The spiders continuously reworked the wrap and burned for traversing the pattern, but so too did the walls. The pattern made its own tunnel. 

What was the worst possible course of action in this situation? Charge in and walk the pattern? Good. Lets do that.


	20. Chapter 20

20

"Hail, minions!" I yelled, leaped onto the pattern, and darted to the first step of the burning line.

As one the spiders stopped what they were doing, rose up on their rear six legs, and bowed. They spread their mandibles and lifted their front legs, so that when they arose, they swayed back and forth, arms wide. Many of them smoldered on their threads. I paused on the cusp of my first step, nonplussed.

"Angel Roland," hissed a deep voice from beyond the light, and I was glad I couldn't see what spoke.

"Yes, I am," I agreed.

Flickering eyes lit up, forming the receding U of arachnid heads above my head. The heads were wider than my arms. They spoke as one voice from many throats, and it was like the dark itself was talking. 

"We have wanted to consume you for some time," it continued.

Damn.

"You've tried before, haven't you? You've sought my demise and been marked for it?"

The invisible mass sloughed toward the flat disc that held the pattern. Something approached, but not yet emerged into the pattern glare. My fireflies were hanging back, staying out of this one. Many of the eyes changed heights. 

"I do not like you."

"I get that a lot. What concerns me is why you want this pattern. You can't walk it. Your little guys are trying, and they're popping like corn. You can barely move it, and you're risking the attentions of the hive above to get it. By the way, my queen, also queen of the hive, she will react if she hears noise, and there are many, many more swarms in this supercolony. You've injured one hive, not the dozens that ring the city."

"But you are here alone."

"People keep tell me that," I agreed. "Why do you want the pattern?"

"We will take it."

"I will destroy it and you, cursing you from the pattern's own heart!" I snapped, and moved to take the first step. 

"Wait!"

I waited. 

"You wouldn't do that. It would kill you too."

"Do you not pay attention?" I snapped.

"Such destruction does not serve your interests!" it lisped, grumbling from all around. There was loss and fear in those many voices, and the ring of shadows closed tighter. 

What if they weren't shadows? Aren't shoggoth's black? Might the darkness be shoggoths?

Let's not think about that.

"Why do you want it?" I asked. 

"Because the one who stabbed us wants it!"

Unpleasant suspicions confirmed. "That's a laudable goal, but I'm not going to let that one have it either."

"You may not have it!"

"I never stabbed you."

"Yes, you did!" it retorted. 

"Details. Listen. You can't have the pattern, and I can't carry it out of here. How may we resolve this amiably?"

"We will destroy you!"

"God, is that what I sound like? I've got to be better than that." I muttered. "Listen, monster in the darkness, no. You won't. You'll try, fail, and in the end, you will be laid waste. My God, that is what I sound like. I should probably see a shrink or-"

It lunged.

I charged five steps into the pattern so when the horde of magic spiders charged me, they were on fire. This was such a good plan. But they burned like happy torches, biting with venomous fangs and slashing with great claws. The first bit of the pattern plunges straight in, and by the time I got to the first curve, several outer rings barred me from the spider horde. They were trying, but the pattern immolated all who cross the lines. It was the little ones first, and they sizzled and popped long before they reached me. The jumping ones came next, but the flares of the first ones burned like brands, kicking up terrible winds of flame. The jumpers and the parachutists fried in the air. The silk bonds around the pattern exploded into light. They tried to be slick and run up the spaces between the lines, yet there was always more fire. Deliberate or incidental, anything that tried died. 

Meanwhile the pattern was writing my memories onto me. They were mechanical, the stuff of training, and written without context I already had. It was the basics and practice, sighting ranges, the feel of an appropriate balance, and so many things I lost myself in them as the spider horde gave up attacking and waited outside the fire.

I was in the second veil when the first memory was just plain wrong.

It wasn't much, a denatured word from Graupa. Sandy had taken himself out of the memories, understandable, and Graupa was going over some footwork, when he broke phrase. You don't step like that. I tried to push past it, but the veil was on me now. I'd forgotten how hard it was. Slowed to almost still, I fought to move my foot, but even that resisted me. It wanted to go down right, and the memory ordered it to go left. There was a snap and a hiss of fire, the smoke burned us all, and my foot won.

It slammed outside the pattern, and the pattern changed to fit it. The path dropped, heading down, into the disc of wax-mortared stone. There was no depth there, I knew, but my foot disagreed. I had the gasp of fear of a step sought and unfound, then slammed onto the blue light of the pattern, a half meter of leg vanishing into stone.

"Uh, what?" I said out loud.

Fortunately I didn't stop. My next step matched the last, and the next descended even further, and at the end of the veil, only my head was above ground. It felt like nothing. I took a few good breaths and went on, and plunged entirely below the pattern. 

It was reflected above, still burning, and through the spaces between the path, I saw fire and light. Underneath there was a different walk, writ in blue too, but three dimension. It had hills and dips, and the pathways turned. No set surface was down. All around was a blank world of fractured black, varying shades of black forming monochromatic prisms and the sense of movement. It was dizzying as hell. I shortened my steps as I spiralled around the path and did corkscrews on foot. 

Finally I closed my eyes, but the memories were gone now. It was just darkness, unfilled with horrors. In slow arcs I traced out some strange shape. 

At the true center I stood on a ball, capping the end of the path like a pommel. The physical pattern in Isenmist hung glowing above me. Pisis-legion was waiting outside, claws ready, and there was no place else to go.

Except I had my trumps on me now.

But that meant Pisis would take the pattern, so I had to fight him.

Ehh..... I thought and sat down on the symmetrically-down ball. I could fight him. 

Yes, I replied, but I had to fight him for the pattern.

"No, I don't have to fight him. I can always trump out of here."

"But then he wins! He gets the pattern!"

"Yes, but- I can't stop that without killing him."

"And?"

"And I've really got to stop that."

"But he deserves it!"

"Ehhhh, yeah."

"He's a monster."

"Well, he's a legion of spider demons, so monster, yeah."

"He's a bad guy!"

"And that's sort of the thing, Roland. He is a bad guy, and we're starting to sound just like him. Remember that? We weren't doing that on purpose. It slipped out. Roland, we sound just like him. If he's going to kill people for the pattern, and he's a bad guy, perhaps we shouldn't start killing people for the pattern."

"But Roland," I argued. "Then he'll win! He'll win, Roland. We'll lose!"

"Well, yeah, but is that worth killing him over?"

"He's a spider demon horde!"

"Yes, but, that's the thing. Do we really want to start acting like that? We've killed a lot of people recently, and we claim we don't want to, but we're not stopping. Yes, I know, there's not a lot of choice sometimes, but we have a choice now. We're making it."

"Roland, we can't let the spider demon thing get the pattern."

"Yes, but the only way to stop him, it, whatever, is to kill him."

"So kill the spider demon thing!"

"Ehhh, I don't know," I grumbled and muttered indistinctly to myself.

"You want to stop killing people with the spider demon thing? The spider demon thing is the thing we should be killing!" I yelled, frustrated with myself, and howled angrily in the darkness.

"Well, yes, no, maybe. We do want to kill less people."

"Then don't kill someone else! But the spider demon thing is going to cause problems. It will do evil. You know what Pisis is up to and how he works, and he deserves killing."

I made faces in the dark, not knowing where to go.

"Lolimar would tell you to kill the spider demon thing," I said.

Instead of answering, I thought about that for a while. Which of my inklings was that urging? I really didn't want Lolimar treating me as her personal assassin. In fact, I wasn't fond of the way she wrote some problems off as people to have Roland eliminate. She would definitely tell me to kill the spider demon thing. She might have been the one that stabbed him a little bit ago. She would be so ready to have me kill the spider demon thing that I decided not to do it.

"Roland, we're being stupid. It's a monster. It's a spider demon thing. Get up there, and kill it to pieces."

"No, I don't think so."

"But then we lose!"

I made more faces that pulled my neck tight, and my lips curled, and I jiggled in place trying to avoid anything else. 

"Well, so be it," I decided, and trumped out of there before I thought better of the matter. 

 

I arrived back in Vo Alamache and trudged to the palace. The sun hid behind clouds, but the south-west wind was pleasantly cool. It was spring again. The fields were just sprouting. Lolimar joined me soon after I got to my rooms.

"Pisis survived. He's a spider demon thing. He got the pattern," I said.

"Well, he must be stopped. We've got to do something," she replied.

Called it, I thought, and frowned. 

I sat down on the bed and tried to think my way through this. Not killing Pisis was going to have consequences. One would probably be I'd have to kill him later when I really didn't have a choice, so I don't know how moral I was by delaying a thing. What if he killed a bunch of other people? Ah, the obvious. I twitched.

Lolimar came over to speak with me, but I stopped her with a palm. My hand covered most of her face. I had intended to put a finger over her lips but instead cupped her chin. Lost in thought, I pulled her down next to me and stared at the floor.

She waited for me to turn to her, and I didn't. I didn't acknowledge her at all. She wasn't prepared not to be the focus of attention, not in her own palace, but I wasn't having it. Then her mind went to work, and I couldn't read her body language any more. I wasn't really trying. I should have killed the spider demon thing. I knew I'd regret it.

How was he even doing that? Don't spiders need food? Metabolically, can they labor like that without eating?

Roland. Magic spider demon thing. Calm down. 

"Could you have stopped him?" she asked.

"Maybe."

"Did you try?"

"No."

"Why not?"

I finally looked at her. "I kill too many people."

She didn't look prepared for that answer. I wasn't prepared to say it. We had a stare-off, then I turned my attention to the floor, while she considered a wall. We were always good at not talking.


	21. Chapter 21

21

Somewhere in the depths of Vo Alamache they found my punching tree. We hung it in the courtyard. On the first day a crowd of spectators, soldiers, and the curious watched me work, expecting miracles. Most came back the second day. Almost no one returned the third. There's only so much excitement you can drag into watching someone else work out. I did a few hours, then wrestled nine men. They bounced and gloated when three of them pinned me. That got it out of their systems. Archery and fencing on alternating days, riding in between, and miscellaneous weapons practice wherever it could be found.

Who comes up with a morning star? Who has that thought? 'You know how nice a well balanced weapon is? Let's make one so off balance neither you nor the other guy knows what it's going to do! Brilliant!' On a related topic, if you want to start a pedant fight between blacksmiths ask what the technical difference between a mace and a flail is. It's like throwing one stick to two dogs. 

On a morning in summer I was talking to a young woman who had taken up boxing. This was unusual but not rare. She'd been doing it for about thirty years, and the numbers always amazed me. They shouldn't. Everything changed with the fountain of youth. 

"You want it swinging," I said, poking a birch log so it pendulumed before us. "Your target's going to be moving. The log makes you think about keeping a straight wrist when you connect."

What's-her-name said, "But why the wraps? Shouldn't I be working on strengthening my fists?"

"Yes, do that too. You need balance."

"Your Majesty." She curtseyed.

I looked at her like a Martian then turned around. Lolimar was behind me.

"Your Majesty," I said because we were in public.

"Sir Roland," Lolimar replied. She glanced at the boxer.

I glanced at the boxer and blinked a few times. Thinking herself dismissed, she trotted off.

"Who was that?" asked Lolimar.

"Good footwork, excellent speed, mediocre angles."

"Her name," Lolimar said slowly.

"Why would I know?"

Lolimar spent several seconds trying to figure out if I was serious, then sighed like I kicked her puppy.

"Hey! Who are you?" I yelled over my shoulder.

"Merra, Sir Roland!" She yelled back.

"She's Merra."

"I used to worry, but now I just wonder," Lolimar muttered to herself, frustrated enough to say that out loud. "Sir Roland, you seem to be finding a use for yourself."

I nodded. "Finndo erred. When he edited my memories in the pattern, he took out too much. He removed all the bits about him, and everything that might turn a hand against him, but he also took out much of Arryn."

I looked at Lolimar curiously as we walked towards the citadel's walls. A counterclockwise stairway ascended, and a forewarned guard was at a perfect position of attention at the top. In fact all the guards were at formation perfect stances. She recognized his salute. I went on for a while on how mechanics changed over history. 

"Arryn had hundreds of years of technique. A strategy would ascend, and counters would get developed. But Finndo didn't include any of that. He had the training and the exercise, but he didn't get much of the skill. I don't think he realizes there is a skill. There's an insight there I'm trying to make sense of," I admitted and thought of Finndo.

"What is Arryn like?" she asked, surprising me.

"Is? It's gone. Conquered and destroyed," I said.

"Oh. You've never spoken of it."

"That's because it's not there any more."

"If you could find a way back, would you go?"

I was about to say that wasn't possible, but then I heard it in my head. Of course it was possible. A surprising number of people would probably do it for me if I killed Finndo first. 

I hemmed. "Ah, I hadn't really thought about it."

"But what do you think about it now?"

I sat on a flat bit of stone. "What do they call this?" I asked her.

"This is the rampart, and you're sitting on a castellation. See how the stones are laid together? The bees lay pebbles between them, and create a mortar. It's like wax but dries harder." She explained that during winter, the walkway could be roofed so the guards wouldn't shirk patrols because of the cold. It was a laborious process, and one they didn't undertake without a reason. She talked of the shift rotations, and the sightlines of the towers. Her captains ordered their sentries, and they all lived in three huge garrisons, even the commissioned officers. "Sometimes they complain about that. There are always some who think they should get private quarters."

"It gives you something to fight about," I agreed, and we went silent. 

If I said no, I wouldn't go back, I want to stay here, would that make me available? Would Lolimar then lose interest? I'd never thought about her as a girl until Fiona had mentioned it. From her child's perspective, I would have been unattainable and remote. In Arryn we called that out of your class. For the heir to the throne, I would have been the only thing, or person, she couldn't have. Would I be throwing away all of that if I said, "I'll stay. Let's get married and bang?"

Or is that just me being conceited? The notion sounds stupid. People are stupid. Am I being stupid, is she being stupid, are we being stupid together, or are we opposingly stupid? 

This was a bad topic. Did I want to go back to Arryn? Make a play for infinite money and time, and really learn to kick ass? None of this few decades at a time nonsense. Century upon century of training, power, and technique? Become the Benedict.

I considered why Benedict was the best. Any of them could have done it, but Benedict did. He had the temperament for it. I thought I also had the temperament for it. He had a few millennia head start, but time was weird in shadow. I think I could take him.

Of course I'd need to do more work with weapons. I scowled and mock punched some rocks. Weapons were boring. They were a necessary boring, though. 

"They tell me you've been among the yrch," Lolimar prompted.

Again I shook my head, clearing it. "Sort of. After leaving Vo Done, well, after Celeste, I went into the wilds and kept an eye on them. I wasn't really among them."

"What are they like?"

"Bad," I said. If this world was what it seemed, if I'd found it as Derwent implied, and if my observations of the yrch backed him up, "They're altogether evil. They are malice. They can't be reasoned with, and they don't have a purpose outside violence. They are there to kill or be killed."

"Would you do that? You seemed like you regretted it before." She lowered her head but looked up through her eyebrows. 

"Well, they're yrch," I said.

"And?"

"But they're yrch!"

"What do you mean?"

I opened my mouth to explain and had absolutely no idea what to say. I stood with open mouth and hand raised for emphatic gesture. Lolimar had this odd kind of patience, where she does nothing and forces you to act. But I didn't have an act or a word. I shut my mouth and punched rocks a few times. 

"Do we know what they're doing?" I asked.

"No. They haven't bothered us."

"The omote would know," and that lead us to the Geiger. Had Lolimar ordered Yve killed? Had she acted to imply she'd ordered Yve killed? Yve hadn't been killed, so worst case, how big a deal was attempted murder anyway? 

Roland, I said to myself. Attempted murder is a big deal.

"Did you order Yve killed?"

"No."

"What was Fiona doing here?"

She thought about her answer too long to say she didn't know. 

"She was...involved with someone else. A man named Charles was one of my suitors, and she was a suitor of his. I knew her from Vo Done. She followed me to Vo Alamache and sought a position in my court. She had left long ago, long before I'd ever met you, but followed me for another chance at youth. I gave her a position because she was very wise."

"Charles?"

"Yes." She looked at me. "I've had many suitors."

"I would expect nothing less," I said. "Tell me of Charles. What did he do?"

"He talked, mostly. He was something of an alchemist. Sometimes he built. He carved the three great patterns, and set the Ordeal of Fear. Applicants must face the hive alone, descend to the depths, and walk the greatest pattern, that of Derwent. If they passed, they were full members of the guard, and could supplicate for commision. Your friend the boxer had walked two of the great three."

"I thought you didn't know her?" I demanded, and it sounded like an accusation.

"I don't. She wore two stars on her collar." Lolimar turned away and scanned the wall guards. "He has one. She has one or two. I can't see from this angle. That captain? He has a blue star. He's faced his fear."

The stars she referred to were curious works of twine, like laces, tied between five holes. The resultant star pattern was a bounded pentagram, with white laces for the lesser, and blue laces for the greatest. Lolimar explained that anyone could walk the patterns, but it was generally only soldiers that did. Over the years as people enlisted, served, and left, more and more civilians gained the right to wear stars. 

"Some of those that haven't walked the patterns wear them, which is illegal. More people wear flair at the collar, so it looks like they have stars. There's friction between the soldiers and collar banders. We break up a lot of brawls over it." She shrugged. "It would be something."

It's always something. I stared over the countryside. The fields were crossed in waist high walls. The goats jumped them at will, but the dogs knew which goat belonged where. Wheat and barley stuck to their fields, clover ran wild, and thissin, think cotton potatoes, took root any place the goats didn't find it. If you wanted more goats, you could breed them, but you could also lower your field walls so they wandered in on their own. They'd eat everything and shit everywhere, but at least you'd have more goats. Sometimes the last owner would show up, and you could fight over them.

"No," said Lolimar. "That doesn't happen."

"I'm not a farmer!" I retorted. 

"I'm going inside. There's a messenger for you at the south gate, but he's here to tell you there's another messenger for you at Southern Midway. Neither he, nor I, know what other messenger has to say. He needs a rest before he returns, which should be done now." 

She looked at me, seeing her memories more than my face. Well, it wasn't my face, so I couldn't fault her. We stood very close but not touching, and then she walked away, taking the long way round to the keep. I hopped to the courtyard and found the gatehouse.

It was as dictated, except the messenger couldn't run back tonight. He claimed he could, but that wasn't an option. I jogged out and passed the city, loping past the usual crowds. Some people waved. Once I was beyond the traffic I picked it up to a run and lost myself in thought.


	22. Chapter 22

22

"There's a man named Root who lives outside Vo Done. He's one of the ones that refused Lolimar's invitation to come north. But he's old now, and he's sick with something. Fluid in the lungs, they say. Doesn't have long for the world. He said he wants to talk to you before he goes."

The messenger was a gangly fellow with no chin and a huge adam's apple. He always looked surprised. 

"He refused to follow the queen?" I asked.

"A lot of them do."

"But, but she has the Fountain of Youth!"

"Yep," he agreed. 

We had our impasse. 

"Will you come?" he asked.

"Yes." I told someone to inform the queen, and that I would return. I didn't know when. I didn't want to leave her, I realized, even though the army was strong and her castle walls high. With the way the stones had been laid, that fortress was nigh impenetrable. Still, I hesitated.

"Give me a sword, a knife, and some armor," I said, and it was done. Then it was me and the messenger. "Run as fast as you can," I told him. "We'll sleep when you need it."

"You're carrying a lot of metal on you," he chided me.

"I am Roland," I replied, and we ran back south.

It took him twenty miles to understand, and then we were high and cold. I gave him my cloak and dozed. 

This was the fast, hard route through the Fingers, off the shoulders of the great peaks. These paths were rarely used, rough lines of dirt beaten between snowfields. Even the birds avoid our heights. Not much had changed since I'd run them before, and the messenger, named Jymp, knew the way well. We talked but not much. Soon we descended into Isenmist of old, Merilar's land, sparsely populated and alone. We crossed from the seaward cliffs to the Gates of Dawn, old and dilapidated now, but remaining with the imponderable permanence of stone. Weeds jutted from each crevice, and trees peaked over the ramparts. From there we entered the White Wall Vale.

"You used to live near here, right?" asked Jymp. We were several days into our run.

"In a tower out there."

"That may be where we're going."

"What's it called these days?"

"The tower? I don't know."

"The vale. It used to be the Path of Final Desperation."

"I don't know anything about that," he muttered and saved his breath for running. Soon it was clear we were going to my old tower, but I stayed with him. I didn't want to rush off to face Root. Eighty years for him was only recently for me, and the sting of his leaving when I'd needed help wasn't dull. This deathbed atonement nonsense struck me as procrastination. Besides, he wouldn't be in this plight had he just followed Lolimar to the Fountain of Youth!

Of course that would really make things awkward. 

Awkward is better than dead!

We trotted up to my tower, and I went in.

If such a thing could be called Root, there he was. He was a tiny leather bag, splotched and sallow. Sometimes he coughed and his body shook, but mostly he lay still. His eyes were milky white. There was a young girl with him who seemed to recognize me. She said hello, but turned to her great grandfather and whispered to him. It took a while for her to make herself known. Then Root shifted one hand. He couldn't lift it from the bed, but he stretched his fingers. I sat with him and took it. The girl looked grateful, and we stayed in silence.

It took a few days. I wasn't in a hurry. Eventually we woke up, and Root was cold and stiff. He looked finished. 

"What do you do with your dead?" I asked that morning.

"Bury them," she replied. "I have a shroud and halter for him."

"Do you have a hole?"

"No, but I have a shovel."

I nodded. I took her shovel and went outside. Jymp was still there, looking vaguely post mortem. 

"Head back to the Southern Midway, and get word to Lolimar I'm burying someone, and I'll return later. It shouldn't be long. Maybe midsummer," I said. It was late spring now.

Jymp sighed and headed off. There was no reason to run, and his long, fluid pace showed no hurry. I dug the hole, two meters down, two wide, two tall. I kept it square because I didn't know if Root was going to be oriented a particular way. I had all the time in the world. So did Root.

We put him down gently, packed some dirt on him, and about a meter up, put a flagstone down. That would deter scavengers. Then we filled in the hole, and made him a simple headstone. Neither the girl or I said much. 

"Where will you go now?" I asked her.

"I stayed to take care of him. But now that's done, can I go north with you?"

"Sure. What's your name?"

"Lolimar. I'm named for the queen."

I had been leaning on the shovel, staring into space through the disturbed earth, and trying to think something significant. Barring that, I felt obligated to feel something. But I didn't. Not because I was numb or grieved, but this Root, old, withered, and dead, didn't match up with Root young, sometimes sick, and turning back to his pigs. This was an era unlike mine. You turn your back on someone, and you can't call, write, or message. Root and I knew when we parted we'd never speak again. And burying this old thing with the help of his last living, or maybe last remaining, relative had no connection. But she said her name was Lolimar.

"You are. She's tall and beautiful. You look like her," I said. I felt twisted, my head turned back to my past while my legs kept walking. How old was she? Early teens? Little Lolimar following me to meet big Lolimar. How long would I remain?

The girl looked pleased. 

"Let's take a day, and we'll head out in the morning. Can you put the tower to rights?"

I didn't know for what, but she didn't argue. She happily went about the work, airing it out and cleaning, and I scurried up a tree. Once my tower had been the tallest thing around. Is there a deep thought in that?

Possibly, but it depended on if I wanted one. Trees grow and towers don't, and that's as simple or complex as need be. This was an elm, truncated where lightning struck. The trunk stopped in a broad stump well above the canopy, and another, smaller trunk coming up the side hadn't beat it for height yet. I put a dozen metaphors to that as I sat on the stump, chewing a stick, and thinking. I spent a few hours there until I descended to have civilized conversation. 

The girl was at first torn. She'd been told all sorts of frightening nonsense about me. I was a murder machine, ate babies, lead cults, what have you, and initially, especially when her grief was still new, she was shy and silent. On the other hand, she was incredibly bored. I don't know how long she'd stayed alone in the tower with a mute relative, tending to him as he passed, but she had stuff to say. She had anything to say. That girl wanted to talk, and I wasn't remotely involved in the process. I was a target. I've never had an easier time keeping up my end of a conversation.

"Hi," I said, when I got down from the tree. 

"What were you doing?"

"Looking for an ambush. May I call you Mary? Lolimar is known to me, and this might avoid awkwardness."

Mary was fine with it. Mary told me her name's history, four generations back, and side offshoots. She told me of her parents, (died of something. Diphtheria?) her aunts and uncles, grandparents, grand aunts, granduncles, cousins variably removed, and sworn sister. She told me of Root's pig farm. We discussed her uncle's apple orchard. 

I kept trying to figure out what she wanted from me. There was nothing. Mary was bored out of her skull and looking for an excuse to talk to anyone. She was talking so fast her mouth couldn't keep up, and she'd stumble over two words at once, make a buzzing sound, and continue. Our conversation covered everything. Around the point we hit boys, I spaced out, wondering if as the adult I should say or do something. I couldn't think of anything, so I asked some vague questions about roads, and she said everything she wanted to say about roads. Then birds. Then starvation. There was a logic to it at the time. 

Want to know how uninterested she was in my role as an active listener? Around evening I fell asleep, and she went on talking. 

Come midnight the babble stopped, and I awoke to find her wrapped in blankets, sitting in an arrow slit with her lean leaning against the stone. She snored like little kids do. I wondered if the change in noise had awoken me. I listened. No. A distant thunder was approaching, and when it arrived I went outside to meet the Geiger. 

"Hello, Roland," he said, inclining his head.

"Hello, Gun. Should I get my armor?"

"It would be best."

"I expected no less of you. Please wait."

I went in, armored up, and looking at the little one. Kids sleep peacefully, no lines, and for all that Lolimar had youth, she wasn't young. She was old in the world. Lolimar slept in dreams of power, an intensity that wrapped her no matter what. This on, Mary, had none of that. The rock was comfortable enough. I smiled and went out.

Gun the Geiger was taller than I remember, three odd meters, several hundred kilos, and wore the immense head of a bull. His neck was wider than my torso. Below that his body was a caricature of humanity, inordinately broad and muscled. He was a child's imagination of a body-builder. Gun carried only one weapon, the Ending, which was a broadsword weighted for hands that had more leverage than a human's could exert. To me it would have been a shield. Beyond that, he had nothing but his leather skin and pants.

"Who sent you?" I asked.

"I may not tell."

"Understandable."

He drew the Ending from its harness, and the grey metal shuddered with static. So too did the Geiger's feet as he stepped. I had some nameless sword, but even if it could parry that physics-defying monstrosity, the lightning discharge between metal blades would fry me if I tried. Still I drew. 

The Geiger settled, but his heels lifted. Between them and the ground was an adhesive web of lightning, crashing and annihilating the grass. It intensified to a solid beam that burned black holes in my peripheral vision. Meanwhile the Ending boiled with power as well, until discharges arced from the blade to soil and sky. The Geiger's preparations put him in a pillar of lightning. It burned away his shadow.

The ground and trees began to shake, deep stones cracked, and the bull charged. My sword flew up at his eye, he parried, and swung down, falling like meteors. He hit the ground behind me as my fist took his guts. Broader than a human, his belly had room for my hand to submerge, my wrist followed, and I went up to my forearm until the tension of his abs overcame the strength of my strike. Then he burned a vision-killing path through the trees as his sword thundered uselessly to the ground. 

I clenched my eyes until I could see again before walking him down. By the look of it, his digestive system was gone, and his ribs broken. He had terrible swelling of the guts and thighs from internal bleeding.

"You threw your sword?" he asked from his back.

"Useless against you."

"I should have known."

"I expected you to."

He smiled, pleased, and died.


	23. Chapter 23

23

Mary was peering out the door when I came back for the shovel. "Who was that?"

"The Geiger. Can you make a shroud for him?"

"Who- What? But, you just-"

"I know. Can you?"

"Yes," she said with a hint of pride. 

"Good. Be done by the time I finish the hole. They're coming."

"Who's coming?" she asked.

"The trap."

The omote care not for the manner of their funeral rites. They are as uninterested in what happens to a corpse after death as a downed tree. But they respect that we care, so much as the Geiger obviously didn't care anymore but I did, his people would appreciate finding him in the earth. Besides, I wanted them to know.

Gun's grave was deeper than Root's, but it went faster. Mary barely finished the shroud in time, sometime before dawn, and we swaddled him and rolled him in. There was no help for that. I hefted his weapon. It weighed at least a hundred kilograms.

"It would never work for a human," I told Mary, taking advantage of her confusion to speak without expecting a response. "We haven't got the leverage."

She had no idea what to say. Good. We buried him with his blade, capped him with a flagstone, and finished up by dawn.

"Now run," I said. "They are coming, and they are without number."

The first wave came from old Isenmist, and it was spiders, shoggoths, and nameless creatures of the deep. We fled east, and emerged from the forest to see swarming yrch. They blackened the earth, and the smoke of their fires blotted out the sky. They were like a moving wave of night. I threw the little one up on a shoulder and ran north, hoping they would fight when they met. They didn't. They met, but the yrch mounted the shoggoths, and the lesser spiders were carried by the yrch. All of them chased us.

I'll make them suffer for it, I thought, and I ran throughout the day. I skipped the eastern nail of the Finger mountains, where I'd have to slow down, and aimed for the great plains east. Then I slammed down distance. The sun rose, hung, and set. Stars came out, but the yrch see well in darkness. I went straight, not even attempting to hide my trail, and ran until they started dropping dead in the plains.

Mary was too scared to talk but in the morning asked if she could eat or drink something. It had been a day and a half. I glanced at the horde, and noted they were neither gaining nor falling behind, having overcome by night my day's gains.

"If you're carrying anything," I said.

"Are we going to make it?"

"No."

"But you're Roland!" she complained, and through a thick tongue, I tried to explain.

"Mary, look at them. Maybe there are thousands. Maybe there are millions. But there are many. I'm one man. Yes, I'm powerful, and probably some of the stories are true, but I can't fight armies and win. We are going to die. I'm sorry you'll die hungry. If you have any final thoughts you want to think, or any prayers your want on your lips when you answer your religious questions, think and pray them now."

"But granddaddy Root said you can move through heaven at will?"

"I've got two trumps, and they're both of me," I half-explained and went back to running. 

On the second day we hit a river. I trailed the bank. On the third day it hit some hills, so we left to press north. Now the plains were so wide the mountains to the west were gone. It was endless flats and sky. On the fourth day Mary asked me to find water again, if I could, and on the fifth day, she fell asleep. On the sixth dawn the horde that chased us was gone.

"Wake up, kid. Eat this."

"What is it?" she asked, delirious.

"A plant."

"Can I eat it?"

"If you put it in your mouth and chew."

She didn't ask anything else, and took the roots unwittingly. It was pulpy, tasted vaguely of chalk, and succulent. It stilled the thirst. We were perched on a hillside, the tallest point I could find, and it towered two, possibly three meters above the plain floor. I could see twice as far. The horde was still coming, but they were nowhere to be seen. 

"I gotta sleep. Keep a look out."

"What if I fall asleep?"

"We'll probably die."

"That's bad."

I passed out. 

She shook me later. "Roland! Roland! Someone's coming."

"Friend or foe?"

"They're carrying banners of a bleeding skull."

"That could be anyone," I muttered and got up. 

It wasn't a bleeding skull. It was a beehive skull. Easy mistake to make. The soldiers of Lolimar's legions marched across the plains toward us, heading unerringly in our direction. 

My, that was convenient. 

As they got even closer, I saw that I was leading them, which was even better. They were a few thousand in number, well accoutered, and moving in snaking lines. Those in front trudged paths in the wild bracken, and those behind followed it, rotating forward.

Once they saw me standing on the hillock, they stopped and formed up lines. The me in charge of them came forward and called across in Arryte.

"How you doing, buddy?"

"Fantastic! Had a jog!"

"Good! I hope you're not too tired."

"What did you tell them?" I asked.

"Said you're an evil face stealing monster," he replied. 

"Do you call them the irony legion?" I yelled back.

Finndo blinked twice and then told them to kill me. They charged. Everyone's a critic.

In formation they couldn't go quite as fast, and their spears formed a hedge before them. I told Mary to hide, not that it would matter, and then went off to the left. I was several hundred yards from the small one, moving at an angle instead of directly away, which allowed them to close the distance until we were within bowshot. Then they explained how they intended to compensate for my skill advantage with the thrum of a thousand bowstrings. Before the onslaught stopped arching, another thousand sang, and by then, the first were ready. 

Arrows fly slowly. Yes, it looks fast up close, but in arcs, they seem to mosey across the sky. There's a gentle quality to their approach. The noise is peaceful, like a breeze, and the bowstrings are a one-note song, played only for tempo. 

"Finndo, Son of Oberon, I curse you with all the hate I've ever carried, all the curses I've bit back, and may the terrors of my nightmares find a way to you, and visit my malice upon you and your allies," I said, also gently, into the low wind that raced sideways across the plains.

Arrows fell without limit. 

 

Suppose someone had infinite anything at their disposal. The only limiting factor was whatever they chose had to work within a set of rules, call them natural laws, that you got to set and they didn't have time to experiment on. Their objective is to kill you, and you can pick those natural laws specifically to make sure they don't. What do you do?

The first thing you do is make sure they can't get to you. You bar the way and block them out. You work with all the power at your disposal to make sure they can't get in. They'll probably try to use nukes or whatever, so you make sure those don't work. But that's probably not going to be their main approach. They don't want to throw the planet into the sun because there's no way to confirm success after that. Likewise they aren't going to burn the universe to ash and then pick through it, looking for dental work. Understand this properly. Success is their second priority. Their first is to be sure.

So what will they do? They'll choose an assassin. They'll pick the best, most obsessed, maddest and most ruthless individual they can find, but they've got to pick from inside your world. (Remember, you walled them out. You've learned from that mistake.) 

So you've got a problem. You can't make everything in the world harmless to you, because then you're a marked man the second you leave. Your immune system goes caput, or rebels and you get fatal allergies to air. That's the rookie mistake. What do you do?

You don't make them weak. You make yourself strong. If your world is full of people, a good way to do this is write a pattern, something small, and make it laborious. Make walking it hell. People will naturally come up with all sorts of reasons to toil on, emotions, memories, motivations, and the harder the pattern is, the deeper they're going to reach to come up with strength to burn to fight through. Make sure your natural laws let you keep all that, because it's free money.

Next, sucker the assassin into walking it. Sucker that sucker into walking it over and over again. See if you can get into his head, so he retreats into the strain of it. Anyone crazy enough to chase you through hell has to enjoy hell somehow, so they'll do all the work for you.

What have you done? You've gained power. You got skills he put the time into developing, while you developed other skills, other powers. You got twice the benefit of your time. But don't stop there. Take his house. Take his home. Get him to convince the whole world to walk your pattern too, either by words or example. It's free money. Then kill that sucker when you don't need him any more. 

How do you kill him? Drop ten thousand arrows on him. Yes, the first one will do, and the next hundred might be overkill, but you're not here to play games. You do not do half measures. You're not in it for guts and glory. You're here to win. If he can dodge one arrow, he can dodge ten. If he can dodge ten, he can dodge a hundred. So put ten thousand arrows into his corpse, and once you're sure he's dead, really, really sure he's dead, you have someone else go over there and chop his head off because you're not here to make stupid mistakes.


	24. Chapter 24

24

Captain Hersh, Blue Stars, left the volley formation and trudged into the arrow thicket. They started out loose but soon were thicker than the grass. He picked and poked around, knowing his legions were watching him with a volley drawn, just in case. There were more arrows, shredded brush, and lanced dirt. The other soldiers started yelling advice, mostly conflicting, and the oddly taciturn Sir Roland ordered a handful more men to come over and help him. Finally he found a corpse.

"Got him!"

"Bring me his head!" yelled Roland.

Hersh considered the find before shouting back, "I need a ladle."

Roland did not look pleased. "What do you mean?"

"He's been shot."

"Well, get me his face."

Hersh was still standing in the field, looking at his feet, and the other soldiers gathered together in a group around something. One of them pulled a clump of arrows up. It was joined at the tip, but the collecting point disintegrated when lifted from the ground.

"There isn't one," Hersh yelled.

Roland seethed and swished his mouth before trotting over to inspect the find. 

It had been a corpse. Now it was red.

"Ten volleys will do that," added a private helpfully.

The searchers turned to look at her, even Roland, who was turning faintly green with fury. The private smiled. She was a young woman with yellow stars and looked hopeful of a kind word. She got nothing. Roland turned back to the mess.

"He was wearing armor," said someone. That soldier reached down and picked up some shreds of metal. He held it between two fingers, and the small fragment was lanced in innumerable places. "This was a breastplate."

"That could have been anything," snapped Roland.

"No, sir. See how it has bits of straps?" replied the soldier.

Roland grunted.

They waited for orders for a long while. 

"Burn it," decided Roland. "Burn everything. Start the fire here, but flare this entire plain."

"Ah- sir-" began Captain Hersh. 

"You'll be fine," Roland snapped. "Return to formation and get flint and tinder. I want all the great plains on fire."

It was done as he ordered. They dug a firebreak around their position and with the spent arrows acting as kindling, set a plains fire. It was never in control, and the wind whipped it back and forth. But somehow it never jumped the firebreak, nor harmed the soldiers. Only ash that got in their eyes and smoke that burned their throats crossed the line. By evening the fire was racing east, leaving miles upon miles of devastation in every direction.

"Everyone had a chance to rest? Take some time, and prepare to march." He took an isolated spot on a bit of grass and turned his back to the soldiers. They could see he carried that deck of cards he played with. After shuffling it backwards and forwards, cutting a card out, replacing it, cutting it out again, he finally bent his attention to it. None of them knew what to say, but Sir Roland had always been a bit weird. The soldiers kept an eye on him as they drank, giving each other looks, hoping someone knew what was afoot.

Roland's card exploded into spiders. Screaming, he charged off the grass and dove into smoldering embers, rolling in fire as he beat himself with his hands. Spiders were everywhere: up his cuffs, in his hair, trying to crawl inside his mouth. The soldiers leaped to their feet and stared in shock as he tumbled through the ashes, kicking them up into burning pillars. Once he'd burned the arachnids off, he stumbled back towards the camp.

He raised one ash-smeared finger like he was about to say something and thought better of it. They hastened back to Vo Alamache.

 

Four days later they passed Southern Midway, running in full armor. The city turned out to the walls, cheering, and the infantry saluted them in passing with a one-note serrande on their bows. Then they loped up broad plains before the mountains, making it to Vo Alamache by dawn.

Roland relinquished unofficial command at the gate, where captains separated the legions into regiments and garrisoned them. He strode into the palace. Two thirds of the castle's guards had remained, and they saluted smartly. He recognized them and found Lolimar in her quarters.

"Sir Roland, I-"

"Be silent and do not speak again," he replied, chucking sword, knife, and bow onto the bed. The queen recoiled and stepped back. Roland did not react. He worked his buckles with his fingers, fumbling them and prying the straps loose by main strength. His armor fell apart, leather and metal hitting the floor. He dropped his helmet onto a chair. 

"Pick that up," he added and strode into the water room to give himself a towel-bath.

When he returned the armor pieces were neatly arranged on a wooden man, and the weaponry was racked. Lolimar sat in a high-backed chair, saying nothing, and watching him carefully.

Roland put his trumps on a wardrobe and paused in the act of shuffling them. Instead he stared at the deck that lay face down on the table. A unicorn rampant reared on the back of the deck, and Roland bent his will. At first he seemed merely distracted, but soon he began to sweat. His neck corded. The cards shuffled, like some insect underneath was scrabbling to get out. The man hissed, and swept the cards into a bag of metal. It had a leather lining and drawstring thongs. He tied it, dumped it in a drawer, and leaned forward onto the wardrobe's counter, resting his weight so his arms flexed, and he tried to stare through the stone. Then he snapped at Lolimar.

"What are you so entranced by?"

"A strange man in my bedroom. Are you who you look like?"

"Who else would I be?"

"The man you gave that face to."

Roland judged her. His lips were a thin line, which looked odd, and he sent her a sideways glance. It didn't have any suppressed attraction. He didn't look conflicted, like he wanted to have and avoid her. He was calculating.

"What happened to him?" she asked.

"Dead. Arrows."

"He's very resilient."

"I was thorough."

"He always said you were," Lolimar agreed, but Roland didn't look relived. He looked ill. Finally he went through the wardrobe and found something that fit. 

"And now that I understand things, I made sure I was." Roland turned to face the queen, and stood evenly, his weight neutral and arms crossed, looking down at her. 

"He spoke of you like a sorcerer," Lolimar said.

"I'm not. Maybe as you would say it, but not as a sorcerer would. What else did he say of me?"

"He said you're the strongest man he's ever known," she said, and Roland looked pleased. "Save possibly Gerard."

"Gerard?!" Then quieter, "Possibly. He is a problem." 

"He said your name was Finndo."

"Did he?" said Roland, and threw himself onto the bed. It bounced under his weight, and he lay supine, staring at the ceiling. "Is that the name he used?"

"Sometimes. He also called you Sandy."

"Yes, I bet he did," the laying man said. "He must have told you a lot about me."

"We used to talk. Where you are now," she added and looked intently to catch his reaction.

She didn't get the one she was looking for. He looked up, letting the ceiling resolve itself on his gaze and the bed wait underneath him. He intentionally relaxed twice and finished tenser. "Well he's dead now. And his vengeance died with him. Whatever obsession he had, it's over. Ten volleys and fire for effect. A hard rain. A fire. A bad fire. Fire for effect."

"Are you Finndo?" she asked.

"Of course."

She nodded, hiding her thinking with the gesture. The man, Finndo maybe, did not pay attention. 

"What happened to those cards?" she asked.

Finndo was quiet until he sat up and shot her a flat, ugly look. "Perhaps not all of his vengeance died with him. And had he been more diplomatic, he could have used it. But he wasn't. When I understood that, took him at his word, I realized he couldn't be reasoned with. So he's dead and I'm cursed, but at least Roland is dead."

He plopped back down. "And now I must- Damn." He groaned long and weary, and placed his hands over his face. Lunging up he strode quickly to the wardrobe, rifled out the bag of trumps, spun it in his hands, and put it back. "Not yet. I will. Not yet. That's going to be toil."

"What will you do now?" Lolimar asked. She'd never moved from her chair.

Finndo scratched his stubble with his nails. He wasn't filthy any more, but he needed to shave. "You mean, do I intend to take his place? Take you? Ah, women.

"Your grandmother took her throne and held it in her own name. Your father did as well. But you're different. You put someone else in front and rule from behind. You did this for years. Even when Roland was gone and your people served you with devotion, you maintained this fiction that you were just waiting for someone to return. Someone, anyone, a strong man to rule, and you were just biding your time.

"I was perplexed. At first, I thought it was a bit of misdirection, coupled with a little insecurity. That's fine. We all do little things like that. But your boytoy Roland's dead, and you're already shifting. Merilar never did that. So I realized it isn't a scheme. This isn't some plan of yours to adjust the people, or redirect their attention.

"The truth is," Finndo smiled. "You're weak. Your plans are just excuses." Finndo looked her up and down, taking in her fury and gown, skin showing around the receiving dress, and brittle smile that stretched across shear madness. "No. You're a poor shadow."

"Scamper forth. Find a servant boy or something. I don't care."

Lolimar rose, and the high chair framed her like a breaking wave. She was still smiling.

"Try it," said Finndo. "I'll just kill you and rule on your throne. Now scamper." He made shooing motions.

The queen curtseyed in perfect grace and walked out. Once she was gone, Finndo relaxed a little more until he suddenly frowned. He picked up the bag of trumps, twisted it once, and then pointedly put it down. He began to pace, brows furrowed and face passive, but he didn't talk to himself. When he did stop, it was before the wooden man that allowed his armor to be hung in position, and the peg-board that held his weapons. He stared at the sword, and then drew it.

It was sharp, clean, and straight. Finndo checked the balance, then sheathed and belted it. He took it, looking for the queen.


	25. Chapter 25

25

Finndo could not find her in the private halls, that part of the palace she put aside from all her servants and minders. Yet he hadn't heard the great shudder of the doors. After marking the bounds of the private area, he became a hound. 

She might as well have left signs. Keeping his arms and some of the torso, he loped on short legs, with flappy ears hanging low. She'd left a lot of scent, so between some of her common areas he had to scan, but relentlessly he followed her through the tall corridors marked with narrow windows. The pathway stopped at a blank wall, and Finndo became human again.

He was checking for secret levers or hidden panels when the stone twitched and began to rise. Finndo smiled. He stepped to aside to an alcove and drew his sword for the ambush. The first few bees lurched through the opening as it broadened.

"Oh my," whispered Finndo, understanding. He had forgotten that. He watched the stone grind upwards and heard the thrumb. It was the sound of a million wings and, as his ears were still better than human, the rap-rap-rap of stingers bouncing against the floor with the bumbling walk of packed together wasps. 

He bolted. Finndo needed time.

Lolimar stalked out of the tunnel in a towering fury. She wore a cape of writhing gold, and cast shadows before and behind. The swarm flooded the bedroom and dressing room, examined the hallway and statuary, even as more warriors pushed in the windows. They came down the chimneys and up through the drains. Lolimar stalked to the door and examined it. A lace and muslin curtain was sucked against the door jam by a perpetual draft, not bunched up like it would be if the door had been opened. The wasps closed off the windows and fireplaces.

 

Outside a narrow drain discharged into a small culvert that dumped over the keep's west wall. Here the keep wall and citadel rampart were the same, protected by a deep fosse. The drain sputtered and dumped water into the muddy basin. Wasps climbed in until the swarm had passed inside. Soon the trickle stopped, and the mud was still.

A head broke the surface, and a man climbed out. He was filthy and wet, and his face sagged. The skin rippled viscously. When he put his hands down to get his balance, friction tore a good part of his skin away, but the wounds barely bled. They trickled a brown mix of blood and grime. The man looked nothing like Roland and sprawled flat, gasping, between the sharp stakes of the pit.

One by one his wounds closed, but his skin stayed moist. He looked rotten, swollen, and puffy. Water seeped from every pore.

It took the man some time to collect himself. The play of light and shadow hid him from the guards. Over time his skin firmed and his face tightened, and eventually Roland of Isenmist walked out of the ditch and around the castle. He shared a word with the guards because they looked like they expected it, but he hurried to the furnace. 

"I need a sword. Longer than the one I had before and lighter. Like so." He measured some distance with his hands. "Good thrusting point."

"Practicing something?" asked the blacksmith. He presented a selection.

"Always," Finndo said vaguely. He picked one up. "This will do."

"It's one of my best, sir," said the smith, a big smile underneath his whiskers.

"Fit for royalty," agreed Finndo. The smith smiled, and Finndo went around to a side door of the keep. He asked some steward about the bees around the royal chambers.

"Been there all afternoon, sir. Queen summoned them, like as not."

"Well, I'd best go see her. If you do first, don't tell her I'm coming. It's a surprise."

The steward winked at him and hustled off. Finndo heard the first traces of gossip, the breathless anticipation of secret information, and then he was alone. 

He found a small storage room where they kept the soap, expensive and rare, which in Isenmist style was grainy with pulverized rock. The result was a scouring scrub that took off nearly as much skin as dirt. This room also held loose weave towels, riding equipment, bits of rope, spare broomsticks, and several cases of candlestick bottoms. There was a small hole in the ceiling, barely wider than handspan, where a rope and basket could be lowered by the cleaning staff. The other side of the hole was in the queen's chambers, but it was lidded now. A wooden cover, like a porthole, was drawn closed. Finndo poked it with the sword, and it didn't open. He listened hard and stabbed, jamming the blade through and yanking back, leaving a hole. He listened again. There were agitated bees, but they weren't swarming nearby. The hole was much too small for them to come through. While he waited he rubbed himself in the scented soap. It smelled earthy, like fresh dirt. The bee sounds passed away. He put his hand to the crack and pushed, and his body began to wither.

A slow bubble of skin rose from the crack in the hatch. A bee investigated it, and determined it was dirt. Once the bee moved aside the bubble cracked and opened, revealing a gentle brown eye, like Roland's. The eye scanned the room and found nothing but bees.

Below Finndo lifted up one foot. 

His clothing shrank and faded to skin tones. His raised leg shortened. Bit by bit he withdrew, while the eye flattened out and spread, like a spill, turning brown and hard to match the floor. The bumbling motion of the wasps bounced against its edges, and the spill moved underneath them. A few investigated, but it was just stone. When he was almost gone, he adjusted the sword so it was blade to palm, and then stretched his fingers, making eating motions. The blade slid upwards, passing gently into the hand. His wrist was bent, but the sword didn't come out the back side. They were both gone before anyone came in. 

The steward opened the miscellany closet and looked around. He rushed to tell the others, and they started taking bets on whether or not he was off to propose to the queen.

Queen Lolimar was investigating the water closet, having noticed a peculiar drop in the cistern level. That morning it had been half full, ready to be mixed with boiling water and come to a comfortable equilibrium for the evening, but now it was empty. It was disturbingly empty. The stone vessel was bone dry, like someone had toweled it down. Even the edges of the cistern than never completely drained now had. 

She followed the spigot to the tub, which was also parched, and a grated drain. This was pushed aside as wasps bumbled in and out. The drain wasn't large. It took much of an hour for the tub to empty, but she didn't know where it fed. There was an agitation behind her, but wrapped up in examining the water path, she didn't turn around quickly.

When she did she saw herself looking at herself from only a few feet away.

"Hail to the queen," she said and ran half a meter of steel through her breast. 

Lolimar dropped, and the wasps erupted into fury. They swarmed at them both. One of the Lolimar's caught fire, an inward bonfire that erupted from her skin and immolated the wasps when they tried to get close. They stank and burned. The swarm fled, and the standing queen Lolimar smirked. 

 

The oak doors of the queen's sanctum opened, and Sir Roland emerged, face drawn and tight. He didn't look like he had enough skin. A few members of the cleaning staff waited outside the doors always, normally doing minor tasks, folding laundry or straightening ropes. They leaped to their feet.

"Get me a hedgewitch, a doctor, a leech, whatever you have. And-" he paused. "If there are any wasps around, drive them out. Use fire."

He retreated back into the private corridors, leaving the doors open.

When they came, they found Roland in the hallway, sitting on a broken flagstone. It was five hundred kilograms of old granite, broken and heaved into the corridor. He had his head on his burned hands, staring.

He was staring at Lolimar, what was left of her. She'd been torn apart, pulled into two pieces, and burned here and there. She was almost unrecognizable. Half her face was inflamed to twice its natural size, but the other side was almost untouched, frozen in fear. There were dead wasps everywhere, burned out of the sky.

Roland pointed at her vaguely. "You can't do anything. Do it. You can't. You can't do anything, but do it anyway. Do it." He didn't try to stand up.

There was nothing to do. She was dead, torn apart by wasps. They could carry someone off, the people whispered. Roland was abstract, semi-coherent, and didn't pay much attention. Questions had to be repeated again and again. He sometimes didn't answer them directly, and sometimes didn't answer them at all. It wasn't for days that they put together a decent picture.

"So why the new sword?" asked Lord Hyr at a meeting in the throne room. The throne itself was empty, a regally folded ermine cloak on the seat, and a silver crown on top. A wand and scepter were crossed on the back. Roland was seated on a stone before the dais, the same stone from before, and he looked off into space.

"I was scared," he admitted. He looked blankly at Hyr. "You ever asked someone to marry you? I was terrified. What if she said no? What if she was worried about before? What if she remembered my first wife? What if she said no?

"I-" he paused. "I'd just returned from burying Root, but I hadn't stayed. I knew the heggereth had stolen my face, and he was in the old kingdom, down by Isenmist. I knew he was going east to the yrch. Perhaps he was in alliance with them. I had returned, and we hadn't spoken, the queen and I, not then. I called for arms and we destroyed the monster. Captain Hersh was there. The captain remembers, but I don't know if the captain remembers the final curse. When the monster died, he laid one last word of vengeance on me. After the fire."

"I remember," said Hersh, standing at attention outside the circle of nobles. His armor was robed in white, befitting grief. 

"The heggerath had died, but his actions had remained. Isn't that the way of it? Root had died, but I remembered him. The heggereth we destroyed, but his curse laid upon me. The army remained. She'd told me of the Ordeal of Fear, and that remained." Roland stopped to stare into space, and no one interrupted.

"But what would remain for me? I've fathered no children, plowed no fields. I've made no stonework, nor built any cities. What would outlast me? Why had the heggereth chosen me? Was he a ghost from my barren future, when I'd left nothing after I was gone? And when I returned I spoke to Lolimar, and I decided... But decisions are easy. Talking the first step into the fire is hard. So I got a sword. It was a good one, nice iron blade. I prefer my hands, but a new problem is best solved by new methods. I got the feel of it and spoke to the Queen."

"She was more surprised than I. She didn't even believe me. She thought it was a joke at first, and she was mad. I don't know why she'd think that. It's a joke I'd make," he continued, sentences contradicting each other, and the knight stared into nothing. The nobles looked in that direction and saw a wall, and they sat and waited. "The bees believed me."

He snapped out of his distraction. "Did she tell you how she came to the power? It was here. When the cult of the Orthodoxy usurped her throne, she and I fled here. Alamache was known to me, though not well. He taught her to summon the bees, taught her to communicate with them. And then he left. I never knew why. But he left after giving her his fountain. I think he was always ready to return, but time is strange when youth is eternal. Things don't get done. People get put off, and distracted, and Alamache didn't concern himself. His bees were watching. He had time.

"And then she said yes, and the bees killed her. And there was nothing I could do. Can I kill a bee? Easily. Can I kill two? Or ten? Certainly. I raged at them. But kill one and another comes. I fought with the sword and with my fists. I set myself on fire. They attacked us both, and I slew them without number. Fire can bring them down-" He stopped, and stared at his burned hands. They were ugly red, coarsely lined, and the skin that had been white wasn't healthy. It was dead or bleached. Roland stared at his hands for a while. "And then she was dead, and there was nothing anyone could do. I guess someone heard the fighting and came."

"No, Sir Roland," said Lady Errie, properly Head of Staff. "You came to get the doctors."

Roland looked at her curiously. "No, I didn't."

"Yes, Sir Roland, you did."

Several others at the table nodded in agreement.

"No, I didn't," he said but his words trailed off, and he looked back into space. "I guess we need to bury her."

Now the nobles were silent, unwilling to say anything, until Lady Errie, one of the braver ones, said, "Sir Roland, she's already buried."

The knight turned his head sideways, and looked at her with an abstract unseeing smile. "No, she isn't."

"Yes, Sir Roland. We buried her yesterday. We spoke about this," said Lady Errie.

"Oh," said Roland, and he smiled politely. "I should go see her."

"Certainly, Sir Roland. We can go whenever you want."

"Good. Good," agreed Roland, and he settled back on the rock, looking sideways. He didn't pay much attention to anything else for the duration of the meeting, and soon the nobles excused themselves. They filed out of his presence and immediately collected in a antechamber.

"For a warrior, he seems awfully unfamiliar with death," said Lord Hyr. "Suspiciously so."

"Possibly, my lord, but remember he wasn't expecting it. We all expect it on the field, or at arms, but not in the queen's chambers. Not at that moment," said Captain Hersh. He was representing the army, which stood at tense readiness.

"He of all people should know death can come at any time," grunted Hyr.

"But should he expect it, my lord? Then?"

"I've been canvassing the servants," said Lady Errie. "They were spreading rumors about Roland asking the Queen for her hand. Something he said gave Steward Finch the idea, and he was telling everyone about it. I asked him what, and he couldn't say. Finch says Roland didn't tell him he was going to propose, but Finch said he's of it. Finch says Roland wandered, going into a soap closet at one point."

"A soap closet?" asked Lord Hyr.

"This is what he says," replied Lady Errie.

"My lords, I was a young man when I asked Lord Jein for his daughter's hand. I was no Sir Roland, but I had no idea what I was doing," said one of the younger lords, a baron named Kol from Southern Midway. "If someone told me I'd wandered into a soap closet, or practiced a new sword, well," Kol shrugged. "Besides, Sir Roland's always been a bit strange."

"Great fighter," said Hersh immediately.

"Absolutely," they all agreed. "But..."

"Perhaps not so good with people," suggested Lady Errie.

"Perhaps."

"I don't feel right about this," said Lord Hyr, stroking his beard.

"None of us do, My Lord. The queen is gone," said Kol.

"Has he said anything about taking the throne?" asked Errie.

"He says nothing. He doesn't even agree with himself. He's bemused," muttered Hyr.

"Someone needs to sit on the throne," said Kol, and Hyr cut him off.

"Who? You? Is that what you're after?"

"My Lords," said Lady Errie, chilling the budding argument.

"Does it even matter?" asked Hersh. "It is Roland. If he wants the throne, he'll take it. Would you stand with your guards and try to prevent him?"

"Will the army let him have his way?" snapped Hyr.

"He is the army," replied Hersh, absolving himself of all responsibility. "Besides, we have time. We have time for him to remember himself."

"And what if we're attacked, when the yrch learn we are leaderless and weak?" continued Hyr.

"Are you really concerned with Sir Roland's ability to handle himself in a fight?" asked Lady Errie. "Lord Hyr, warfare is the one thing that could bring him back. Let us go about our tasks and not give in to panic."

"No one's panicking," yelled Hyr.

No one else said anything, but they allowed Errie the last word. When she didn't take it, one by one they left. 

Lady Errie spoke to the servants, the soldiers, and the castle residents over the next few days. She urged them all to keep an eye on Roland, just to watch him, and bring word of his doings to her. They all agreed it was a finished matter.

 

Sir Roland took to walking the roof of the highest tower of the keep, which drove the locals insane. He perched on the sloped and dirty slate, itself covered in bird byproduct and slippery moss, and regarded the far horizons. Worried nobility tried exactly once to confine him, and when they recovered, they all agreed never to do that again. They spend a lot of time fussing and somewhat less quietly discussing succession. It was agreed that the confusion around Lolimar's succession could not be repeated, should something untoward happen to Sir Roland.

He was, unarguably, the ruler of Vo Alamache, but he did not reign. He went twice to Lolimar's grave and said nothing either time. But he walked the roof of the keep and watched the horizons. It was a very long fall to stone. He didn't work with any of the soldiers but encouraged them to train hard. 

At dawn of the fifth day of autumn the guard shift rotated, and the new patrol reported sleepily that all was clear. A young captain, new to the post, accepted this report as he had twice before, and walked the walls once. He thought of warm beds but roused himself with a sense of duty. Duty wasn't much in the cold morning. He reached for his reserves of will. One of the guards with triple stars stopped to talk to him, and having no stars of his own, the captain had an informal discourse. They chatted for a while until Roland fell from the darkness and landed on the catwalk beside them.

"Which of you is the guard?" demanded the knight.

They blinked, and the captain introduced himself. "Sir Meer of Final Redoubt, Sir Roland."

"Are you the guard?"

"I'm the captain of the guard, Sir Roland."

"Then what is that?" demanded the knight and pointed away to the east. 

The young captain blinked and looked. Far away the rising sun was painting the sky, and low on the horizon was a smudge. It was small, black, and round, like the shell of a beetle. 

"Uh," said the captain.

"It's the yrch, you fool. Ring the bells. Vincent comes."


	26. Chapter 26

26

To the east of Vo Alamache were the Apallatine Downs, a high moor that was dry, lean, and provided little water or soil. Few people lived there, and they survived as roving shepherds. North the downs met the Fingers and ringed the basket that was the valley of Alamache, a deep lowland watered by two rivers. South of the downs the valley opened to the great plains, the yrch flats, and in the middle of that mouth was the huge fortress of Southern Midway. It had a deep fosse and two curtain walls, the outer ten meters tall, the inner double that, and an interior keep called the Water Breaking Stone. There were no eastern gates, for the people of Lolimar did not live that way. Instead to the outlands Southern Midway raised its highest walls, and there the fosse was lined with the sharpest stakes. It was built on a deep bump in the bedrock, where the bones of the mountains pushed above the ground like a broken tooth. A river lapped against the west wall, and in time, that river would form a full moat. This was not yet done.

The yrch had no ladders. They had spiders. They had numbers and monsters, shoggoths and poison, and they burned fires as they marched. Mostly they burned their feces and waste, kicking up a stinking, oily cloud that hung low and lingered. It was said the yrch always marched in the shade. They came to Southern Midway under a dark noon and sent one message ahead, a burning arrow, wrapped in oily filth. It smashed bluntly into the inner wall and fell to the ground, where it fumed and stank. When dashed with water, the stain spread. The horde attacked. 

Southern Midway stored one hundred thousand arrows in the fortress, and Roland's Legions fired half before the enemy even hit the walls. The initial assault was a third of what it should have been with corpse mounds clogging the fields. The yrch burned their dead for smoke and kept on coming. At the fosse the yrch threaded the stakes and tore them down. That slowed them a little. Roland hesitated, then slashed for continuous fire. There would be no better time of slow targets. The legions put the rest of their ammunition to use and killed so many they plugged the fosse. The yrch kept coming. They piled the stakes up by the walls and climbed them. Corpse mounds they burned. The oily flesh of the yrch birthed foul green fires against the walls. It smelled of shit and pig-fat. The legions didn't have time to fear, for the yrch were there. The battle skewed to close-quarters combat, and spilled over the walls into the courtyards, spewing in and out of the towers.

"Why aren't we winning?" mused Sir Roland on an overlooking tower of the inner curtain.

"Excuse me, my lord?" 

"We're not winning. We aren't losing, but why is the matter in question?" asked Roland.

"My Lord, the soldiers of Vo Alamache train day and night-" began Sir Hersh in offended bluster, but Roland cut him off.

"Be silent. This isn't a question of pride. We do train day and night, and the yrch don't. But we're not crushing them. The matter is in question. Why?"

Hersh glanced to the rest of the lords of the army, unsure. "My Lord, battles are a matter of tides. They do not flow along simple lines."

"No, Hersh, you are correctly wrong. This is a matter of devilry. The question is 'what sorcery are we up against?' not some matter of tactics." Roland pulled his chinstrap down to scratch his face. He looked suspiciously at the horde.

"My Lord, I have no knowledge of devilry," said Hersh and made a gesture over his brow.

Roland noticed but didn't address it. "No, you don't."

"Perhaps the men would fight better if you lead them," suggested Lord Her. 

"And you (Baron, is it?) are wrongly correct," agreed Roland. He drew his sword and tossed it, so it flipped in the air and landed back in his hand. It was a shorter, heavier sword than what he'd used before. He nodded his approval. "To arms then," and jumped the wall.

His guards didn't follow, because they couldn't handle a mere twenty meter drop. Roland landed and swung to loosen up as he advanced on the battle. The soldiers saw him coming and cheered, a slim thunder in the pell of war. Roland saluted. Taking a line on the surge of men around a bulbous push of yrch, he strode past their lines and plunged himself and his blade into the enemy.

Finndo accounted himself well as a son of Amber. He hacked through the vanguard without slowing, scattering flesh and ichor. He didn't kill the yrch; he destroyed them. His swings exploded fighters, throwing shrapnel. Yrch behind his targets died. Mowing his way to the wall, he leaped to the breach and lanced the blister of the attack. The whole time he scowled out at the shadow of the army and waited.

By the time he'd taken back the wall, he knew a part of the answer. The yrch had walked the pattern. They fenced and parried, advanced and worked angles. They tried to grapple when disarmed. They fought like well trained berserkers, instincts beaten into the muscles themselves. Instead of wiping them away, the humans were fighting desparate.

Finndo changed all that. There might be tactics for fighting someone who hits like a battering ram, but you don't come up with them berserk. The first yrch that tried to bind blades with the prince got his sword shoved through his body. The yrch behind him caught the blade with his face. They didn't learn fast enough. He fought like he knew what the yrch were going to do ahead of time and shredded their lines. It was a meaningless slaughter of him against the horde, but the whole time, he scowled and waited. 

Once he had committed himself, and once hours had taken the edge off even a prince of Amber, the tide shifted and fell. The wall wavered and tumbled backwards. It didn't collapse. It fell, sideways, as men and yrch fell as well. They flew parallel to the ground until they hit the inner curtain wall, which groaned. Only for a moment did it hold, then it collapsed, and they crashed five hundred meters to the keep. Almost everyone died. Those on the wings never stopped falling, and screaming, plunged over the city, beyond the far walls, and fell until the distant mountains smashed them into mist. 

"Got you," hissed Finndo, clinging to the ground. His blade was buried to the hilt in stone, and he hung from it sideways. 

He fell again but only a nonce. The ground became again the ground. Outside the fosse the screaming horde of yrch charged.

To match came the roar of thunder, a sound that broke stone. A thousand-fold omote charged down from the Apallatine Downs on feet of lightning. They burned a path inwards. By the time the yrch moving to the castle figured out what was happening, Finndo was on his feet, a terrible being of lightning and power. Everyone was dead, and his disguise useless. He charged from the fore, and the omote from behind. 

In a pavilion at the center of the horde, Vincent hissed in concern. "Ballsy way to spring a trap."

"But, all of them-" whispered Derwent softly, looking at the people still falling away.

"Shadows," snapped Vincent. "There are always more. Summon the swarms."

Derwent looked at Vincent like he was seeing him for the first time, but Vincent was prepared. He had an effigy in his hands, a woollen doll laced in blood. When Derwent didn't immediately obey, Vincent bent his will against it. The thunder of the omote approached, but a grinding whine burrowed through. It was nails on a chalkboard, a dentist's drill, shrill screaming. It was bees, Derwent's bees out of shadow, bred these many years and greater and more powerful than any that had served Lolimar. They flew out of holes in the sun and caught fire as they swarmed the omote.

Gravity surged, sucking trees to the ground, and clouds vortexed in the sky. They snapped upright again, and the ground heaved. Yrch flew and bounced. Finndo made it to the pavilion through a hail of fire and stones. Swords raised against him burned their wielder's hands, but the horde threw maces and clubs. It wasn't enough. He tore open the iron door of Vincent's lair.

That was a trap. It was a trump built into the door, and as Finndo grabbed it, Vincent hit him with his will. Even as spiders burst out of melting metal and bit, burning as they died, Vincent's will hit Finndo's defenses. It was serpentine and liquid, peeking through Finndo's walls. In his eyes was a twisted mass of lines, and behind it he saw the one-eyed serpent. He saw Vincent cast before him. They were joined at the feet, but Vincent was tall, stretched out a hundred times the height of a man. It left him thin, while the Logrus left him twisted. And Finndo knew it was the Pattern over his shoulder, casting the shadow.

Finndo was now some five meters tall and fluctuating in form. He tended to have four to eight legs, but they were formed of fire. Below the waist he ignored flesh. There was a blue and white halo around him that crackled and sparked, and Vincent's initial assault with the Logrus hurt them both. But Finndo was smiling, and he opened his palm. There was a jewel in it, set into the skin. It was like a red eye, and there was a pattern within it.

"No!" yelled Vincent. All his will was in the attack, and he had none left to regulate his words.

"Anything I want!" 

"It can't be real!"

"So it's half as good! My blood is the blood of Amber, my flesh is the pattern, and that's close enough." Finndo smiled.

Vincent tried to run, but he couldn't. A red light poured from the stone that fixed him in place. He had only his will, but he threw that and the image of the Logrus within him at Finndo. They fought an immobile war, a silent press of power. Flames softened the iron walls of the pavilion and arcane forces pushed them out. The metal bowed and bent. Derwent began to burn, screaming, as he lacked the arcane endurance of the others. The walls crumpled and fell. Vincent and Finndo continued to strive, but they were evenly matched. Both conjured stranger and stranger powers to be met in kind, and neither of them could gain an advantage. It was all according to Finndo's plan.

The Lord of the Omote came. He savaged his way through the yrch horde once the battlefield was stable enough for fighting, crushing everything before him with the Godhead. It was a mace like a ship's mast with elaborate, multifaced terminus. Every eye and howling mouth was a jutting spike. Lighting lived between the tines. He was Doon of Kimmer.

"Kill them," gloated Finndo.

"I have come to do so," said Doon. "But something has come up. It seems you are not who you claimed, and therefore disreputable. I'm afraid I must terminate our agreement."

Finndo was still immobilized by power, but his eyes bulged sharply at that. Regretfully Doon lifted the Godhead and dropped divine wrath.

Lightning burst into the calculus of conflicting powers, and everyone exploded. The earth heaved as deep slabs of bedrock fractured. New faultlines burst, tearing the valley apart and heaving what was left of Southern Midway fifty meters into the air. It was a fist punching up through a broken board. If Vincent had other powers at his command, they did him no good for his face was burning. Derwent was on fire and screaming. 

Finndo was no better, but he was not to be denied. Doon charged him, swinging the epicenter of the storm, and Finndo made his own. The fake Jewel of Judgement in his fist burst into glorious incandescence. He punched the omote's mace as it fell, and they smashed in a thunderous shock wave. But Doon had two hands, and with his other he slammed Finndo to the ground.


	27. Chapter 27

27

Prince Finndo of Amber, Son of Oberon, and all around jackass struggled on his back. Doon of Kimmer, a delusion, Lord of the Omote, wailed with the Godhead, and beat the Amberite down. Every strike blasted the earth, lightning burned their flesh, and bounced from breaking sky to the senseless battle. It had gone mad. Gravity played incoherent games, the wasps of fire killed yrch and omote alike, and the towering minotaurs were not on anyone's side. Everything was falling apart except Finndo.

Finndo was getting legs under him. Doon struck and tore a gaping hole in the ground. The sides of the crater collapsed. In the dirt avalanche, Finndo managed to spun sideways, and hit the nadir with his feet under him. Doon swept the burning mace over again, the prince dodged. The Godhead hit the crater walls, and shockwaves burst through the ground. From above they looked like the wakes of fast fish. The Godhead fell again, and Finndo stepped inside. He got his shoulder under Doon's arm. The mace stove in the soil again, but Finndo put his hip to it. Doon flew. The minotaur splayed on the crater wall, seeing Finndo reversed, as the prince of Amber charged. He swung with the Jewel of Judgement he had made in his fist, and the powers of shadow fell behind his knuckles. He pulverized the omote and cast him through the earth, spitting up dirt and rubble. Then Finndo stabilized his breathing, got up, and went looking for Vincent. 

His shadow was trying to get away when Finndo walked him down. Derwent lay senseless, away from the slag of the iron pavilion, and ignorable. The wasps were mad, killing without direction. Vincent was crawling for a mundane shadow on his hands and knees, and his fingers were already reading for the writhing Logrus. He got very close to it. Then hands wrapped his ankles and dragged him back. Heat of the glowing iron hit him. Finndo had him again.

Finndo thought about explaining and didn't. Instead he put Vincent on his knees, head bowed before him, and lifted up the hand of the jewel. It flickered once, and then flouresced brilliantly, pulsing with Finndo's heartbeat. The Amberite filled his arm with power and dropped a hammer.

Vincent's collarbone snapped, and he went lumpy. His body rolled sideways. Finndo was still holding him upright, but now Vincent looked like a broken doll. At contact with the terrible fist, Vincent's blood began to burn. Finndo held Vincent up to look at him, to make sure he saw his shadow die, and raised his arm again.

"I curse you, Finndo. I curse me, that I can fall on you. I curse the pattern that cast me from you, and I curse my own blood, the tie that binds, that it may stain and poison your hands. May my hate chase you beyond my death," whispered Vincent all while the fist was falling. Shadow was warped by the Logrus, and time in Isenmist had always been erratic. Vincent had plenty of time in the moment of his end. Then Finndo connected a second time, broke his spine, shattered his ribs, and ruptured Vincent's essential vigors. The image of the Logrus within him broke underneath the fist of the pattern, and Vincent died.

"That's going to be a son-of-a-bitch," muttered Finndo. "But the time for subtlety and half measures is over. My consequences are upon me."

Vincent's corpse was burning, and Finndo pushed it down. He reached into the gore and splayed his fingers, searching for something. He found it. It was the sword that killed Lolimar, pulled from the burning logrus of his own shadow. The fist of the jewel gripped it, and the blood of Oberon summoned it. It was, Finndo thought, an excellent weapon for killing royalty. It purred from Vincent's smoldering flesh, cutting a pathway through the stuff of shadow. 

Finndo considered Derwent. The captain looked dead already. Finndo shrugged and strode over, taking his usual number of legs, and casually lopped the mercenary's head off. Then he looked around, and noted the yrch, the omote, the swarms, and the melee. 

"Bloody waste," he muttered. "Well. There's always more." And Finndo went out to start cleaning things up. 

The spiders fled first. Pisis in his multitudinous form looked into the face of Finndo and ran. His little legs carried him away. The yrch paid no attention, because they were battle mad. They fell on the prince and broke like a wave. They didn't run until the omote were on them from behind. Then they were caught in the mill.

After annihilating the yrch the prince moved on to the bull-headed ones. "Doon is dead," he announced. "I killed him with my fist as expected."

Golg Unnamed spoke for all the omote when he asked, "You slew Doon?"

"Yes. I am not Roland of Isenmist. I am Finndo of Amber, heir to the throne of the one true city. I am the king of kings. I am the greatest warrior alive. Doon of Kimmer failed his reputation and was destroyed. Let he who would make a name for himself come forward for a glorious death. Let he who would be a legend join me."

The omote were thrown into doubt and milled in confusion. No one was the first to advance. While they hesitated, Finndo looked westward to crumbled Midway. It was a ruin driving out of the ground, and its bones were thrown across the valley. Orchards and fields for miles were splashed with the building stones of the great walls. To the east the sky was still dark with the lingering stain of yrch-smoke, and the air still carried their smell. Finndo looked down at his sword hand and concentrated on the jewel within it. At first nothing happened, but slowly a mild wind rose from the west, coming down off the mountains, and the clotted smoke of the yrch began to break. It held at the center, but the edges began to boil and stream. Finndo extended himself, and even the center of the coal-dark clouds wavered.

"Lord Finndo!" called Golg Unnamed, approaching from the herd. "What is it you intend to you?"

Finndo thought, drumming his fingers, and then spoke bluntly. "I am going to rewrite the Pattern of Amber, that everyone who walks it will feed my power. Then I will bring a threat against them and harvest their energies. After that I will kill them all. I will create a new empire, break the balances, and write my name in the fabric of creation."

"Cannot empires be made easier?" asked Golg.

"Yes, but I am not after mere empire. I am after glory."

"It is good," agreed Golg, and the omote behind him nodded. "It is better to reach far and grasp wide, then clutch a pebble close to your feet."

"Indeed. Will you serve me?"

"We will."

"Good."

"If-"

"If?" asked Finndo.

"If you are as great as you say."

"I killed Doon," rebutted Finndo. "You can search for his corpse."

"But Doon was not the greatest of us."

"Then bring your greatest forward!" demanded Finndo.

"Alas, he is dead. The greatest of the omote was Gun the Geiger, put into the ground by Roland of Isenmist, whom you resemble."

"Actually, he resembles me," said Finndo under his breath. "But that doesn't matter. Roland is dead. I killed him too."

"No. He still lives. But he cannot be summoned, for the path is webbed by spiders."

Now Finndo looked sideways around the ring of bulls. "The spiders are fled."

"They are. Will you summon him?"

"He's dead."

"He is not. Will you summon him?"

The prince thought for a long time. His mouth twisted in a frown, but the patient omote did not urge. They waited. He considered and planned, until finally he decided. "No. I gain nothing by that. It is you who lose the opportunity to serve me."

"You are correct," agreed Golg, and they all bowed. 

Finndo began to walk away.

"But we gain much by summoning him, and as you say, the spiders are fled."

Now Finndo frowned and looked over his shoulder worriedly. Golg Unnamed met with another bull and accepted a small rectangle. It vanished in his fat fingers. The prince recognized it immediately and whispered, "No."

The world bent and bowed as Golg reached out his hand. I took it and stepped through the trump.


	28. Chapter 28

28

Finndo and I regarded each other.

"If you raise a hand against me, I will burn this entire world. Everyone will die," he said. He spoke gently.

"I know," I agreed. "You won, Sandy. You got me. I tried to be better than you, but I'm not. I'm as bitter and consumed by my own fury as I hated in you. I tried to be good, and I failed. You won, Sandy. You got me. I'm not better than you are. But I'm going to kill you. Like two competing cancers, I'm going to kill our host so I can take you with me."

"This whole world, Roland? All Isenmist?"

"I don't care about them, Sandy. I won't pretend I do." I cocked my head so I could speak over my shoulder to the omote. "Someone give me a sword."

A blade was placed in my palm. It was long, single-edged, with a thrusting point. I swung a few times to get the feel of it, and it felt natural. I left the omote and walked across the killing field.

Sandy looked at me, then over my shoulder. "Are all of you prepared to die for this?"

"Our ending shall be glorious," said Golg. The great army of bulls hunkered down on their heels to watch.

Sandy was immobile for perhaps three of my steps, then shucked his burned jacket and wiped some bits of grime from his face. There was ash across his brow which he could sweat into his eyes. He wiped it off. I was only ten meters away, stepping unhurriedly over corpses and burning bees. I felt no fear. I was going to die, and Sandy was coming with me. He slipped into guard and settled, and I reached out to make contact. The tap of metal was a soft, peaceful, 'ding.'

I blitzed, he parried, we exchanged, and I charged. The wind of our swords threw bodies at each other, making every attack a missile barrage. Bees burned, shooting poisoned stingers, and yrch corpses flailed. He blocked a salvo and charged, and I ran up falling debris into the air. We caught each other about ten meters off the ground while our shockwaves bounced the dead up and down. They formed staircases into the sky. I went overtop to get the high position, he deflected, and it started to rain.

Such a fight couldn't have happened under normal circumstances. Were Isenmist closer to Amber, its reality would have been stronger. Finndo would not have been able to break it as he had, and things like mass, momentum, and gravity would have mattered. They were fading images now. We fenced across the sky and eventually we'd both connected. Then there was blood of Amber in the air. Rain ceased to fall and began to flow in our wakes. Every time Finndo struck, incidental ripples of his will activated his created Jewel of Judgement. He pulled the stuff of shadow after him. Long destabilized by proximity to chaos and Vincent's efforts to undermine the world, the sky began to crack. Broken glass spiderwebs, broken sky splinters, and the spiders in the sky were shoggoths summoned by our curses. Reason dictated that we couldn't fight like that, but we were mad. 

Of us my madness was worse. Finndo wanted the world, to win and rule. I wanted to kill Finndo. He exercised his greatness and I exercised my murderous will, and I tagged him again and again. I never figured out if Isenmist supported blood transfusions naturally, or if they were some exercise of will. But in that fight, Finndo's injuries spewed like geysers. Blood-splatter got into the spaces between the stars until the sky was patterned in red and violet.

"Dammit, what is wrong with you?" he yelled while our swords cut the thunder.

"You are."

"But you'll die!"

"You're coming with me."

We closed, and I tried a kill shot. I got close twice, once to the wrist and once to the ribs, close enough to feel bone but not enough to finish the job. Finndo tapped me on the shoulder, and I sacrificed my off hand to go in. He lopped off my left arm above the elbow, taking his sword out of position. I caught his hips and lanced the femoral, taking him off balance. He seemed to fall so slowly, drifting backwards to the clouds. They swept over him like waves.

"To me, bones of Isenmist. To me, blood of Amber. To me, flesh of mountains, and to me, cloak of time."

The words hissed as he fell, bouncing off the cracks in the sky, and the mountains rose to his words.

Finndo summoned the mountains. The Fingers, the range that walled the valley of Vo Alamache from the sea, rose up at his bidding. They heaved and strained, pushing against the ground, and stood up. Peaks pulled free of the ground and climbed up onto foothill feet. Massifs crouching against the sky stood up and shook their hoary faces. White cloaked pinnacles shed their vestments. The mountains of the world took to their feet, and while I danced on top of a thunderstorm, they marched to battle. Finndo's laughter echoed on the wind.

"I'm a shapeshifter, you fool. You stabbed me? That's nice."

I turned west as the mountains waded through the cloud-waves.

Well, this was just a problem. I needed a plan and one fairly quickly. Running was out because mountains go a league every step. I even considered trying to hide in the clouds but discarded that as well. They were mountains. Suppose one swung at me and missed by, oh, five kilometers. They'd still hit me. I was pretty sure I couldn't take a single hit from a mountain. I was also bleeding to death from the severed arm. I was moderately impressed by the quality of my sword, but this just wasn't going to go well.

It was time for a constructive retreat. I raced the rainstorm and...no.

Fuck this. Fuck that. Fuck this shit in between. Fuck all y'all motherfuckers, and fuck anyone I missed. 

Fuck. It. All.

I charged the mountain range.

They hit the clouds casting great plumes from their breasts. They waded across the sky, and the red bonds between the clouds snapped like ribbons. They dragged down the stars. The clouds were beating like a drum, and the heavens snarling. Thunderheads collided between us, and broke over the hoary dome of Half Pitch. Lightning embraced them. The foremost peak, what had once been Donnenmist, swept away the clouds with a shoulder, and sent a hanging spray between us. I charged across. I chambered the sword for a vast overhand stroke, because if I couldn't dodge them, they couldn't dodge me, and I was taking at least something with me. Donnenmist the White Shouldered stepped again in slow motion, and the shadow broke underneath its feet.

Pushed to the limit, Isenmist shattered. The fundamental nature of the ground snapped, and the earth plummeted away. The horizon crumpled and went mad. Air screamed, and the nature of things broke. I hit my jump point and went for it, sailing through a collapsing kaleidoscope of falling sky, and the mount of Sunset swung a fist of earth. We broke the shadow.

It all fell apart. The walking mountains, the hills, the plains and valleys, things like space and time, they all crumbled. The skeins underneath them snapped. If the Pattern underlaid everything, it was burned short by the Logrus, and stretched by Finndo's shifting shape. Isenmist disintegrated. I fell, but there was no place to fall to. We'd broken gravity long ago. Concepts receded into noise. Even the images of memory started to fade.

I felt like I was moving, but I wasn't moving from place to place. I was moving from state to state. At first I was asleep and incoherent, but cognition advanced, accelerating, until it burned away my dreams, and the pattern, writ in the Blood of Amber, burned between us. It was fueled by my efforts, those of countless warriors of Vo Alamache, and the mad experiments done on the yrch by Pisis, the blood-doctor. It drifted before us, still, while the chaos of unbeing spun. There were only the two of us, Finndo and I.

He looked around. "Wow," he admitted, shaking his head. "Just wow."

"Hey."

"Hey. Your world broke."

"Sucks. I'm a little unhappy about that," I admitted. 

"You would be."

I nodded. "Blood of Amber. Greater than shadow." I waved my hand at the non-world around us. "I guess it's just us."

"Yep." Finndo nodded.

"You can probably walk out of here," I said.

"Yep."

"But I can follow you."

"Yep."

"I bet it's real hard to shift shadow when I'm after you," I said.

"It sounds like it would be quite difficult," Finndo agreed. "I suppose we'll have to fight it out then."

"Well, if you insist." I shrugged.

"Thing is," he said. "It's all about the blood of Amber."

"I noticed."

"You only have the stuff I gave you."

"Bad choice."

"Roland, after all this time, do you really think I would give you my blood without thinking it though? Did you really think I was going to make that kind of mistake? After all my preparations and planning, you think I was going to just give you my blood, write my mark of power on you, and let you use it against me?"

Finndo sighed. He looked insulted.

"Blood of Amber, twinkles. I'll have it back now." He beckoned, like to an old friend, and my injuries erupted like geysers.

To shift shadow the scions of Oberon need movement. There was no world around us, so he put a foot to the lesser pattern. The cloud of his reclaimed blood faded away above him. 

This was the first time since the gym I had an opportunity to watch Finndo. It was a second first impression. He was tired. All the work, the sorcery, creating and destroying, it took a toll on him. The pattern was always hard, but he labored at it. Even the first few steps cut him to the bone, and he barely made it through the first veil. The shadows on the darkness mirrored his efforts, and they erased the dim images of his memories cast on them. They tried to erase me, but I went past and started on the pattern after him.

"What?" asked Finndo, panting.

"Oh? Me? A little while ago I broke into Bleys in a hotel room. Stole some of his blood. He's pretty pissed about it," I explained, walking after him.

"You..."

"Yep."

"But that wouldn't-

"Oh, it shouldn't. See, I stole it in one shadow, and injected it into my veins in another one. A special one. One made for the injecting of blood of Amber. It got the laws of phlebotomy all crazy. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?" I asked, waving invitingly. "Holy shit! My hands!"

Finndo did not immediately reply. Walking and thinking together consumed all his efforts, and talking was an unaffordable additional waste. He stepped along the arcing blue line.

"Look at me!" I crowed. "These are my hands! My old hands! The one's I was born with! My legs! My arms! I can't see, but I bet this is even my face! I don't have that stupid little bump on my nose that makes you look like a toucan!"

"You son of a bitch," muttered Finndo.

"Now that's just inaccurate. My mother was a lovely lady."

I hit the first veil as Finndo pressed through the second, and we came out about the same time. I hurried around, and soon the arcs separated us. We toiled in silence. I was interested to note the impressed memories were gone, and the pattern was stripped to it's bare essentials. It was a curiosity. Soon it twisted around again, and I came to Finndo.

He cut, I parried, the swords clicked and rang, and I lunged. He dodged and tried to cut off my arm. It wasn't there. I'd released the word in the lunge to snatch his knee, and when he extended, I slapped the blade from his hand. He tried to block, but that was way more technique than he knew. I cross-locked standing, hyperextended his arm, and broke it. While he was shouting, I punched the cap off his knee. Then I walked away.

"You-" he whispered and slumped. It was a while before I came round again. The second veil is a killer. I made it through and got to Finndo. He couldn't get up. "Are you going to do it with you hands?" he asked.

"Finndo, I don't think you'll understand this, but I'm not mad at you. I want to thank you. You answered a question of mine. All my life on Arryn, I wondered what would have happened if I'd been a bit better. A bit stronger, had more money, learned quicker, studied harder. I wondered who I would be, and I wondered what it would be like not to be limited. I wanted to know who I would become if I completely cut loose, operated with no limits, and let myself free. I've wondered that for years, and now, looking at you, I see me. I know exactly what that looks like, because you're it. You've got no limits. You do the smart thing without regards to mercy, kindness, any of that nonsense. You're the perfect villain. I can see perfectly.

"And the truth is, you're weak. I don't want to be you. I want to be better than that. So I'm not going to kill you. I'm not going to take the short-term smart answer to the long term problem. I'm going to take you back to Random and make him deal with you. And you will have the long life of an Amberite to realize what you've done. If there is anything of worth in you, you'll suffer in a hell of your own making. And if there isn't, you've been in that hell all the same, and I don't need to do anything about it."

I picked him up and set him on my shoulders before walking the long way round to the center.


End file.
